Troubles continue at the University of Auckland as it’s being sued by a somewhat off-the-rails professor named Siouxsie (real name Susannah) Wiles. Wiles apparently made some statements about Covid-19 as a public communicator of science, statements that the public didn’t like. The result was that she claimed to be inundated with hate mail and threats. She sued the university for failure to protect her against such hate speech. This is from the November 5 New Zealand Herald:
Appearing in court this morning, Wiles said the University of Auckland’s HR staff told her to stop making public statements on Covid-19 if she wanted to reduce the threats being made against her.
The health and safety advice effectively “victim-blamed” her, suggesting she and her colleagues were responsible for the harassment they were getting, Wiles told a court today.
She gave evidence in her Employment Court case this morning, which is being closely watched because of its significance to academic freedom in New Zealand.
The case centres on Wiles’ accusation that the university leadership failed to protect her against the “tsunami of threats” she received for her public commentary on Covid-19.
. . .Almost immediately after she started speaking out, the threats began, initially about her appearance but becoming increasingly vitriolic and violent, the court heard.
Wiles made her first complaint to the university in April 2020, about three months after her first media comment on Covid.
Stewart said the university failed to act on this complaint and many more. Over the following months, she and her colleagues sent 60 emails about the harassment and threats against her and colleagues, and held seven meetings with human resources staff and managers.
The university did not carry out a threat assessment until June 2022, and that did not include a basic threat assessment, Stewart said. It also took no steps when a conspiracy theorist came onto campus and confronted staff, she said.
During this period, the university used Wiles to promote its success, citing her in annual reports and promotional material as evidence of its academic excellence and critical role during a pandemic.
Yet privately, university leaders were urging Wiles to pull back from her public commentary, the court heard.
“Outwardly, the University of Auckland has clearly enjoyed the prestige of employing such an academic,” Stewart said.
Now I’m not sure of the merits of her case (isn’t it the duty of the police to protect people against threats?), but Wiles doesn’t get a ton of sympathy from me because she was a huge critic of the Listener Letter (see it here), in which seven of her Auckland Uni colleagues argued that “claiming indigenous knowledge (or mātauranga Māori [MM]) “falls far short of what can be defined as science itself.” Since MM is a mixture of empirical observations, religion, morality, legend, and superstition, the authors of the Listener Letter were right: it shouldn’t be taught as science in science classes, though should be taught somewhere because MM is important for perpetuating indigenous culture. Wiles, however, helped organize a group letter calling the Listener Letter “scientific racism.” That led to a pile-on on its seven authors that is arguably worse than the one Dr. Wiles experienced herself (two were investigated by the Royal Society of New Zealand, which also criticized their thesis and defended MM as science). And there were threats, “harm”, and everything else that Wiles gog. In other words, Wiles herself perpetuated exactly the kind of opprobrium she’s complaining about; the chickens came home to roost!
Here’s Wiles (left) from Wikipedia, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on the right:
Now, a group of Auckland academics has signed a letter arguing that the Wiles issues have mad their workspace is unsafe, and intimating that there should be curbs on free speech at Auckland Uni. Click the secreenshot below to read:
What are they worried about? From the article:
More than 100 academics at the University of Auckland have signed a letter to the leadership that says high-profile staff are not being protected by the university.
Some of the academics said they no longer felt comfortable speaking publicly or to media for fear of threats and harassment.
The open letter, signed by 129 academics, followed an Employment Court hearing in which high-profile microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles argued the university had failed to protect her from a “tsunami of threats”, which followed her commentary on the Covid-19 pandemic.
A ruling has yet to be made in that case. The university has argued its management provided extensive support to Wiles and it did not breach its obligations towards her.
Its lawyers also argued the university cannot control all threats — especially those made on social media — and it is doing its best to minimise and manage them.
More than 100 academics at the University of Auckland have signed a letter to the leadership that says high-profile staff are not being protected by the university.
Some of the academics said they no longer felt comfortable speaking publicly or to media for fear of threats and harassment.
The open letter, signed by 129 academics, followed an Employment Court hearing in which high-profile microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles argued the university had failed to protect her from a “tsunami of threats”, which followed her commentary on the Covid-19 pandemic.
A ruling has yet to be made in that case. The university has argued its management provided extensive support to Wiles and it did not breach its obligations towards her.
Its lawyers also argued the university cannot control all threats — especially those made on social media — and it is doing its best to minimise and manage them.
It’s arguable whether it’s the university’s job to prevent threats to its employees. Here at the University of Chicago, I’ve referred all threats I’ve gotten to the FBI or police, depending on their severity. I wouldn’t complain to the University because it can’t do anything unless the threats come from a University employee.
But here’s the part where the petition seems to segue into calls for censorship, particularly of speech that “harms” minorities:
The open letter to the University Council says in the absence of a court ruling, academics “remain exposed to psychological and physical harm while carrying out our work”.
“As racist, transphobic, antisemitic and Islamophobic hate has been rising globally, we are particularly concerned for marginalised groups including Māori, Pacific, transgender and non-binary colleagues.
“We are also concerned that recent politicised conversation around gun control, free speech, and hate speech legislation, as well as public questioning of equity-oriented initiatives in university education (such as MAPAS), is likely to embolden fringe elements.”
The article below from The Platform, an online, politically independent Kiwi radio station, points out that what’s happening at Auckland Uni are calls for the curbing of free speech on the grounds of “harm” and “hate speech.”.Remember, nobody has actually been harmed yet: they’ve been offended and perhaps threatened (which should be reported to the police). But speech should not be curtailed on those grounds.
A few excerpts (emphasis is mine):
Highly experienced textual analysts have seized on key words in the letter — including the phrase “fields of research politicised in the current environment” to decipher what the academics actually meant. The “current environment”, they surmised, may be code for a new government taking office.
“Fields of research” that have been “politicised” might be an oblique reference to the “indigenisation” of universities and the push to make them “Te Tiriti-centric”, which proceeded apace under the Ardern-Hipkins government. Part of that concern will no doubt be that the election of the Luxon-led administration may ultimately mean university management will not be quite so indulgent of “fields of research” that result from mātauranga Māori being inserted everywhere, including in science courses, and the preference in funding given to applications involving Te Ao Māori.
Other paragraphs in the letter make this analysis seem highly plausible:
“As racist, transphobic, antisemitic and Islamophobic hate has been rising globally, we are particularly concerned for marginalised groups including Māori, Pacific, transgender and non-binary colleagues.
“We are also concerned that recent politicised conversation around gun control, free speech, and hate-speech legislation, as well as public questioning of equity-oriented initiatives in University education (such as MAPAS), is likely to embolden fringe elements.”
The references to free speech and hate speech perhaps get to the nub of the academics’ concerns. As part of its coalition agreement with the Act Party, the National-led government will amend the Education and Training Act 2020 to oblige “tertiary education providers receiving taxpayer funding [to] commit to a free-speech policy”.
Note that the new government insists that colleges and universities must have a free-speech policy. This is why I think the new National Party government is better in many ways than the Ardern Labour government. I was initially enthusiastic about Ardern, but her government became increasingly woke and began engaging in identity politics. National is more conservative, but not at all conservative in the way that U.S. Republicans are conservative. Their insistence on free speech, for example, is excellent.
More from the article above:
Overall, the letter appears to be a request for the university to actively shield from criticism those who advocate for “progressive” programmes that put equity considerations above equal opportunity and promote advancement via identity rather than merit. In short, it appears to be a barely veiled plea for the university to curtail free speech and maintain the status quo.
And about the hyprocrisy of the “unsafe” Auckland Uni academics:
It has not gone unnoticed that a significant number of the 119 academics who were moved last week to tell the public just how very unsafe they feel also signed what has become known as the “Wiles-Hendy letter”. Oddly, they didn’t seem to be so concerned in 2021 about their seven professorial colleagues feeling “unsafe”.
One of those who signed both the Wiles-Hendy letter and last week’s effort had also tweeted in 2020: “When the [university staffing] cuts come, can we please not hang onto the white male boomer profs ‘because they bring in the $$$’? That would further entrench the biased system…
“White men are over-represented in the system. They also gets lots of $$ because funding is distributed in a biased way. It would be racist to retain white men at or beyond retirement age because it would reinforce the racist system.”
Some might think it takes an awful lot of chutzpah — or cognitive dissonance — for the author of such a tweet to publicly claim they are fearful of criticism when they have been so willing to call for colleagues to lose their livelihood on account of their age, race and sex.
In other words, Auckland Uni has become quite woke under its Vice Chancellor Dawn Freshwater, who promised years ago that there would be a debate about the topic of the Listener Letter: are all “ways of knowing”, including indigenous ones, equally valid? As I wrote at the time, Freshwater said this:
I am calling for a return to a more respectful, open-minded, fact-based exchange of views on the relationship between mātauranga Māori and science, and I am committing the University to action on this.
In the first quarter of 2022 we will be holding a symposium in which the different viewpoints on this issue can be discussed and debated calmly, constructively and respectfully. I envisage a high-quality intellectual discourse with representation from all viewpoints: mātauranga Māori, science, the humanities, Pacific knowledge systems and others.
I recognise it is a challenging and confronting debate, but one I believe a robust democratic society like ours is well placed to have.
Well, Freshwater didn’t follow through with her commitment to free speech: it’s two years on now, and there is no sign of such a debate (two signers of the Listener letter have since died). Clearly Freshwater knew that she wasn’t going to allow an airing of the issue. If she wasn’t lying, then the debate is still relevant and should go on.
Now is the time, though, for Auckland Uni to adopt a free speech policy that doesn’t ban “hate speech”, which is often just speech that can produce discussion, like the debate that Freshwater promised but didn’t produce. Isn’t the validity of “ways of knowing” something that a University, especially in NZ, should discuss? If the Uni doesn’t adopt a free-speech policy on their own, then it looks as if the new government will force one on them. In the meantime, the hypocritical calls of “harm” ring through the corridors of Auckland University.
How exactly are these people supposed to be protected? I assume members of the public are sending them emails or tweeting or text messaging. I’m not sure how the university can stop that or filter it.
I guess if threats were being sent to a university email address then one can argue that the university should filter them out and forward them to the police. A university-controlled email account is part of the “work environment”. But if she is being criticised on Twitter or similar then I don’t see what the university is supposed to do about it.
” … one can argue that the university should filter them out and forward them to the police.”
Since emails containing threats couldn’t reliably be identified by bot, that would mean that a university administrator would be reading all staff emails before the staff received them … Does that sound like something staff would agree to?
I don’t think they’re asking for protection eh? This is a culture war skirmish with conservative critics of government COVID measures. Wiles is a progressive figurehead in NZ (cf. pink hair, Doc Martens at an awards ceremony with the prime minister). When conservatives try to intimidate progressives this is weaponizing free speech, and she’s going to punish them for it. Ofc when progressives try to silence their opponents this is just consequences coming home to roost.
[edit in response to Coel: You’d think progressives would want everyone to know about these threats rather than have the university filter and hide them. Many eyes on the problem etc.]
When Vice-Chancellor Freshwater’s official exchange of views finally takes place, we can hope that spokespersons for the Ways of Knowing of Wicca, Astrology, dianetics, voodoo, and Critical Gender Theory schools of thought will be represented as well. By the way, the Wiki page on Professor Wiles hints that the comedy under discussion relates to strong feelings around covid lockdown restrictions and their implementation.
The University of Auckland culturally marginalises Asians, even though of the Auckland population, the 2018 census stated 28% have Asian ethnicity, 16% Pacific, and only 11% Maori. Asian taxpayers expect our traditional ways of knowing and pseudoscience to be celebrated. Despite this, I’m still waiting for Matauranga Mahabharata, Matauranga Confucius, Matauranga Mahayana, Matauranga Theravada, Matauranga Zoroaster, and obviously the most downtrodden of all, Matauranga Denisova to have equal lip service in education. But thanks to the anti-Asian late Labour government, it’s just Matauranga maori blah blah blah slapped everywhere. If Asians like me pay 30% of Auckland’s tax take, we expect our money to go to our concerns, not that of White postcolonial guilt trippers — epitomised by Siouxsie Wiles.
It all smacks of “free speech for me but not for thee”. In Australia, professor Holly Lawford-Smith has endured countless efforts to silence and discipline her for the perfectly normal beliefs that there are two sexes and that women’s rights are worthy of protection. Doubtless whatever policies Auckland introduces won’t be designed to protect academics like her.
IMO, Auckland University is in general a 3rd-rate institution with delusions of being 2nd rate. It has had some world-class departments in the past, but AFAIK those days are long gone. (To be fair, its departments of Pacific area studies are still quite good.)
/rant
Regardless of anything, she did a great deal with Covid-19 down here and got abuse for it.
Criticism is one thing, but simply abusing, demeaning and threatening is another.
A great deal as a public commentator maybe. Not as a microbiologist or scholar.
“Siouxsie heads up the Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab, where she and her lab are searching for new antibiotics as well as trying to understand how bacteria evolve to become more infectious.” https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/s-wiles
A bacteriologist like Wiles didn’t have a natural place in the public conversation about SARS-Cov-2. Her 7 published articles about COVID or SARS-Cov-2 have titles like “The urgent need for an equitable COVID-19 paediatric vaccine roll-out to protect tamariki Maori” and “Going viral: A science communication collaboration in the era of COVID-19 and social media.”
When Wiles claimed that her non-expertise on COVID could also be applied to the climate debate I thought she lost what credibility she hadn’t already thrown away.
https://twitter.com/newstart_2024/status/1409395572352684035
Sorry I don’t mean to slam her in particular, I’m sure she means well. And I don’t support threatening anyone for their well-intentioned contributions.
Very true. But she was able to get the techno babble out in a layperson manner.
The climate issue was ruined long before her by those who got overdramatic and political about it. The CFC and Ozone Hole guys didn’t for example.
She does, it may not be her area exactly, but she’d work with them and was probably the best to speak on behalf on the medical community, who are often rather nerdy and awkward. Then she got full of herself.
But threats are not right… ever.
Yes totally agree about all that.
I think the problem for many of us is that public health commentators like Wiles are progressives first and scientists second, and they seem to adopt only progressive views no matter the evidence. A lot of those folks lost credibility when they endorsed shutdown of ~all indoor & outdoor public spaces in summer 2020, but excused mass antiracism protests at the same time.
So Wiles’ pronouncements on a scientific topic where she lacks expertise will seem suspect to many of us, even if she is sincerely only trying to help and sees herself as a general-purpose science communicator (which seems to be a well-earned part of her reputation).
And that’s also why her employment tribunal may be viewed by lots of people as a culture war skirmish rather than an effort to improve workplace safety.
This tweet sort of sums it up for me.
https://twitter.com/wesyang/status/1738204085415780688
I’m a signatory to this letter. I declined to sign the earlier one about the academics who wrote to the ‘Listener’. I didn’t believe that that letter was justified.
For the women concerned – and it’s women who make up the majority of signatories – this case relates back to things that happened in 2017 involving threats to some women. These had nothing to do with their politics, the government, being progressives, etc, etc, etc. I can’t elaborate, as the story isn’t mine. As a result, in any case, the then VC undertook to set up a group that would act promptly on future threats.
The letter was thus actuated by fears that in Wiles’s case, this prompt action hadn’t been taken, and that Wiles had been left to fend for herself. As the Covid pandemic had politicised health, those in this field in particular feel vulnerable about speaking publicly on the basis of their expertise.
This worry also extends to academics in other fields, since academic expertise is called into question much more as a matter of course than it was in 2017, and anything to do with race can now be a tinderbox.
Well, I’m sorry you had to sign a letter that curtails speech. One does not have to fend for oneself if you can call the police when you’re threatened, as I presume is the protocol. I am not protected by my University from social-media criticism or threats, but I am protected by the police from threats to my life or well being. I presume that’s true in NZ too. Given that, then it’s an abrogation of freedom of discourse to call for the banning of “hate speech” that is critical of a group or its ideas. Being offended is part of free speech, being threatened is not.
I’m sorry you feel you have to call for non-threat restrictions on speech at Auckland Uni.
Did a reply, but it seems to have disappeared.
You did not reply by showing that restrictions on free speech are justified. You have said enough on this issue. All I can say is “if you want your kids to have free speech, don’t send them to Auckland Uni”. And your school is full of faculty who dare not speak their minds for fear of being fired or disciplined. I know because I’ve heard from some of them.
The atmosphere at your school is oppressive, period.
Further information from the letter, relating to concerns about what the Uni did and did not do:
In an all staff email sent by the Vice Chancellor on the 11th October, Professor Freshwater stated that in 2021 the University commissioned an independent safety and security audit and report (the Quantum report) which made a number of recommendations for reducing risk and keeping staff safe from external harassment online. She went on to say that she was “pleased to confirm that all of the recommendations have now been completed”. Yet evidence to the contrary was presented in the Employment Court.
We are concerned whether the recommendations that have been adopted are fit-for-purpose. As an example, one recommendation was to compile a list of at-risk staff, and the University’s Kings Counsel and witnesses spoke of this having been done. Another measure that was spoken of was the monitoring of social media for threats made against some staff, including AP Wiles. Yet while the hearing was taking place, this monitoring failed to identify that Voices for Freedom intended to hold a demonstration at the University and when Security were made aware, they failed to protect an at-risk staff member, leaving that person to fend for themselves [Voices for Freedom is NZ’s main anti-vaxx group]
Yes, yes, you are telling us all the ways and reasons that Auckland Uni has justified restrictions on speech. Funny, we don’t have them here at Chicago (nor do the 100 US universities that adopted out speech code), and we’re doing fine. What Auckland Uni is doing is simply prohibiting speech critical of groups and individuals it likes. That is not justifiable if you want “free speech”. Threats are another matter and can be dealt with by the police.
Sorry, but Auckland Uni has become a joke in its restriction of speech. Where is the debate about Matauranga Maori that Dawn Freshwater promised would take place two years ago? Never happened because she doesn’t want that issue, a perfectly debatable one) to be discussed on campus.
Oh dear. I’ll just wait to see if anyone else comments who’s from NZ. Not for a while, I guess, as it’s after midnight in NZ.
You are trying to dominate this thread, which is not permitted. Perhaps people from NZ will weigh in, but realize that two Kiwis sent me these articles, and there are plenty of people at your University who disagree with the Siouxsie Wiles petition and the drive to curtail free speech. You also realize that Wiles started the petition against the seven Auckland Uni profs who questioned teaching MM as science. That was a reprehensible move designed to bully them–just what she’s whining about now. And those seven got FAR more threats and criticism than did Wiles.
You have had your say on this thread now, ok? Not a fricking word about how Wiles did herself exactly what she’s beefing about now.
Hi Corinna,
I type this from Remuera, Keyaurastan NZ. Why don’t you email me at r [dot]nair [at] mac.com and you can tell me all about it. But perhaps you could weigh in on this blog on the points I raised in my comment at the top of this thread. Others too can email me, including Susanna and Steve if they happen to read this. It is factually incorrect for you to state in comment 6 that Dr Wiles had been left to ‘fend for herself’. Her employer is not the Diplomatic protection squad protecting the PM 24/7.
You make a big deal about threats to women, so for the record here is some of my experience as a puny 67 kg Asian male, indirectly fomented by Wiles herself.
When I saw that Wiles and Hendy had started an internet PETITION, that is, a social media agitation campaign, against the 7 Listener letter academics, I was amazed that Wiles and Hendy called them ‘racist’. I probably was one of the few to know one of the vilified 7 was a Maori, a senior in my vocation. Well-known White people Wiles and Hendy were starting a social media campaign against a Maori medic, at the same time when Wiles herself was whining about the under-representation of Maori as doctors — what hypocrisy!
When I read that VC Freshwater attacked the Listener 7 academics, I went to the Wiles-Hendy petition and found around 20 academic names as signees, for whom their university email addresses were readily available. I wrote to all, in a professional way ie giving my residential address and full name, asking them ‘what were you thinking when you signed this letter?’ I also cc-d a couple of UoA academic friends of mine, so that my original text was with them, as potential witnesses if my professional letter of dissent was misrepresented.
An AUT academic contacted me to state that my name had been placed on Xitter, which I didn’t know about as I wasn’t on that platform. One of the FEMALE UoA academics I had written to, a fervent supporter of Wiles, claimed she had received ‘racist hate mail’ from me — broadcasting this to all her followers ! Dr X of UoA didn’t write back to me in private, but was content to broadcast this to Xitter. My original email to these fatuous petition signers pointed out that if the UoA or Wiles had an opinion that Matauranga Maori was ‘science’, then the UoA should equally elevate all Asian and Pacific Island traditional belief systems into the same status in the educational curriculum.
Ramesh, doxing is just “consequences” when progressives do it to you. But online criticism is “violence” when directed at Dr. Wiles.
And I hasten to say again that none of this is or should be threats or actual violence.
While there are several things to be concerned about here, I’m afraid I just can’t get over the fact that a grown woman changed her name from “Susie” to “Siouxsie.” Wtf.
Yes, Sastra, that kind of thing always seems wildly dishonest to me. Like “Ibrahim X” (Kendi) from Joe Bloggs or whatever he was before he got woke.
Very dishonest indeed.
D.A.
NYC