While most debate on academic freedom concerns the question of what can be stated, argued, proffered and responded to – and how, such a focus has enabled a more central and insidious attack and undermining of academic freedom to occur via explicit and implicit constraints upon research. It’s almost a year since the radical reduction, […]
Whatever they do, though, the vote shows that there are clearly a good number of academics at VUW who want their university to contravene a principle it publicly committed to only a few months ago.
“censorship is narrow-minded. It’s shortsighted. Yes, it’s a natural impulse to ideas we find abhorrent. But it’s through calling them out that progress is made, not by cancelling them.” – Jillaine Heather of @NZFreeSpeech
“Only a fool could believe that there will not be some negative impacts from the impact of AI, whether government endorsed and facilitated or not.” – Mike Grimshaw
“… they fail to engage with the now substantial body of evidence that academic
freedom and free speech are under threat at our universities”
Courage comes in all shapes and sizes. I saw this for myself last Friday in the Manukau District Court when I went to supportPortia Mao on behalf of the Free Speech Union. Don’t let Portia’s appearance or gentle demeanour fool you. This pint-sized Kiwi-Chinese journalist isn’t backing down to anyone or anything. Portia is a […]
“This socio-economic and infrastructural collapse and malaise is occurring all around us” – Mike Grimshaw
“The history is there for anyone not too lazy, or too ideologically committed, to see” – Dane Giraud
“… how do we do this in the online world, where respectful discourse often takes a back seat to the spiteful vitriol of anonymous trolls?” – Nick Hanne
“If Rabin was the last sincere Israeli peacemaker, what was Ehud Barak? Chopped liver?”