Academic freedom is defined in s161 of the Education Act as “the freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions”. Without an unwavering commitment to this principle, universities are unable to perform their role as the ‘critic and conscience’ of society, which the Act also requires of them. But in recent years we have seen attempts by university administrators to limit this cardinal rule in response to the purported need to protect students from ideas that risk causing ‘harm’; an undefined, ambiguous notion that may often be reduced to fear of having one’s worldview challenged. 

This limitation on academic freedom is informed by the notion that universities should be a ‘safe space’ for students, particularly those hailing from marginalised communities. But trying to create a safe space for feelings inevitably costs the ability of universities to play host to a safe space for ideas. 

Massey University's academic freedom policy, for example, revised after the Brash affair in 2018, pays lip service to the sanctity of academic freedom and freedom of speech. Yet it claims that these freedoms might properly be restricted by the University in order to “safeguard the safety, health and welfare of its students”. Previously, attempts to suppress the exercise of fundamental freedoms required more than vague pronouncements that a person is made unsafe, or has their well-being threatened, by the fact that somebody is discussing ideas they don’t like (perish the thought). 

As public institutions, universities have an obligation to uphold freedom of expression with the usual justified limits imposed by s5 of the Bill of Rights Act. Indeed, the only constraint envisioned by the legislation is that academic freedom must be exercised within the ‘bounds of the law’. But according to Massey’s proctor Giselle Byrnes, Massey’s ‘policy supports and validates academic freedom while emphasising that with this freedom comes the responsibility to ensure that others are neither harmed nor hurt in the exercise of this privilege.” 

This is not some difficult balancing act. It is an irreconcilable contradiction​ ​​​— either academic freedom is a right to be exercised within the bounds of the law, or it is a privilege to be exercised with regard to the feelings of others ​​​​— it cannot be both. And if it is the latter, it is difficult to see how our public institutions of higher learning can function if anyone who may find the confrontation of a debate stressful holds a veto power over them taking place.

It is a fact of life that asking questions runs the serious risk of offending others, and it is absolutely advisable that academics exercise their freedoms in accordance with the highest standards of not only ethics and professionalism, but simply manners and decency. But, to cite Professor Clark Kerr of the University of California, “The purpose of the university is to make students safe for ideas – not ideas safe for students”. While universities must be cognisant of their pastoral duties, they must also remain places where the space to think freely, to state controversial ideas, and to challenge orthodoxies is vigorously protected. 

What might be deduced from Massey’s policy specifically, and the troubling culture embraced in each of our universities generally, is that pastoral care has taken over from the academic and discursive role of universities. To place the potential for hurt feelings over academic freedom flies in the face of the whole purpose of a university; not for fragile minds to be coddled, but for robust thinking to be tested. In light of that, are universities now more akin to young-adult daycare centres than training institutions for tomorrow’s innovators and leaders? For surely it is only children who would need such patronising ‘protection’.  

In response to media reporting on a Code of Conduct investigation that could see Otago Regional Councillors lose his committee chair and deputy chair roles, the Free Speech Union is seeking more information with a view of assisting Mr Laws or challenging the legality of the Code.

Good morning,

History reveals that freedoms taken for granted are freedoms lost.  

Given your important work in local government, and the influence you have in your region, I wanted to write to introduce the work of the Free Speech Union.   

The New Zealand Free Speech Union is a registered trade union with a mission to fight for, protect, and expand New Zealanders’ rights for freedom of speech, of conscience, and of intellectual inquiry. We envision a flourishing New Zealand civil society that values and protects vigorous debate, dissenting ideas, and freedom of speech as cultural cornerstones. Our tens-of-thousands of supporters form a broad coalition of New Zealanders.

We are eager to work with you to ensure Kiwis' freedom of speech is protected. 

If you would like to hear more about our work, please come back to me and I’d love to share more about specific projects we’re working on, such as our campaign against arbitrary hate speech laws, standing with cancelled academics, or ensuring newspaper censorship is challenged.

In what other Union would you find Matt McCarten, Chris Trotter, Judith Collins, and David Seymour all as members?

Given the diversity of opinions and perspective in our Union, there is virtually nothing that we will all agree on apart from the fact that we should all have the right to express our opinions and beliefs peaceably. 

Freedom of speech is just as crucial at the Council level as it is in Parliament or our universities. 

With division and polarisation on the rise, leaders like yourself have a role to play in ensuring our society retains free speech as a cultural cornerstone. Whether it is labour union’s speaking up for worker’s rights or public commentators highlighting inconsistencies in progressive thinking; religious leaders leading their congregations in long held statements of faith or environmentalists standing for a liveable tomorrow, if we can’t have the conversation we can’t move forward together.      

That’s the scary thing- dialogue and speech across the country is being shut down. 

Would you stand with us in this important work to keep conversations open?

Please reach out if you would like to know more about our work, or if there is any help we can offer you in defence of free speech. 

Regards, 

Jonathan Ayling

Chief Executive  |  Free Speech Union  

Mob +64 21 842 215  |  Email [email protected]   

Free Speech Union (New Zealand) Incorporated  |  PO Box 10512, The Terrace, Wellington 6143  |  www.fsu.nz  

Free Speech Union Council Position Paper: Free Speech and COVID-19 Response Restrictions

The New Zealand Free Speech Union is a registered trade union with a mission to fight for, protect, and expand New Zealander’ rights to freedom of speech. Even in a severe health crisis we must resist pressure and moves to suppress dissenting views. That is not only because of the terrible precedent it will set. Society will always face fears and claims that unpopular or minority views are ‘dangerous’ to unity and common endeavour. 

We insist on preservation of free speech because it is most likely to protect the community trust in its leaders that will be essential if vaccination targets and other Covid measures are to work. 

Freedom of speech is not just the right of the minority to talk. Perhaps even more importantly it is our freedom to know, to ask, to challenge, and to test orthodoxy and consensus. It is our reassurance that our leaders will know they are at risk of exposure if they are wrong, or lying to us, Again and again, even within the short period of the Covid crisis, time has shown that ‘the authorities’ have been wrong, sometimes grievously so.  But our right to freedom of speech mean that most of us can be confident that if it was not mostly by mistake, or well-intentioned wishful thinking, we will sooner or later know the truth.

A society that abandons the right and the habit of permitting challenges to the claims of the powerful is a society bound to have escalating mistrust between the governed, and those who wield the powers to suppress information. Both our liberties and community cooperation are best served over the long run when elites know they cannot impose agreement, and must instead continue with the endless patient provision of facts and truth and  counter-argument. 

That is not costless. The freedom to dispute and to disagree can be expensive. It can even  “kill” some who are misled. But there is nothing in the history of our civilisation to tell us that fewer will eventually be killed by suppression of free speech, than by contesting falsehood with truth. 

There are aspects of COVID-19 response restrictions which relate to our work, but many do not.

The Council affirms the role free speech plays as the bedrock of almost all civil liberties, but  they are not one and the same. We confine ourselves to protection of free speech rights. There will be intense argument over whether restrictions imposed to to respond to COVID-19 infringe on civil liberties, and if so, whether the restrictions are justified under the balancing of interests to which many civil liberties are subjected. We will not engage in those debates.  

People will try to wrangle freedom of speech questions into civil liberty disputes partly because there are so few situations where that foundational freedom can be subordinated to competing purposes. The  Free Speech Union will resist being drawn in into such cases unless we can clearly advocate and educate on issues explicitly related to speech. For example, on questions such as vaccine mandates for employees, the Free Speech Union will not engage, unless and to the extent the measure is clearly intended primarily as a gag, not a protection for the employer’s business and other employees. And for a business or occupation where the proper purposes of the employment require public and private consistency of position, there may be legitimate obligations that enable the employer to insist on the employee avoiding contradiction. 

On issues such as a vaccine passport for international travel, again, it is not the role of the Free Speech Union to deliberate or advocate. However, if an employee faces disciplinary action in their workplace due to speech related to vaccine mandates or passports and it does not prejudice the purposes of their employment, we will stand in defence of such speech. Regardless of an individual's vaccination status or stance, we will fight for their right to state their views. 

Free speech must be respected, even in the face of scientific consensus. 

Though the Free Speech Union does not take a position on a matter outside its mission, for the record, every member of its  Council favours efforts to vaccinate as many Kiwis as possible. None of us share the views often attributed to “anti-vaxxers”. 

That makes it easy for us to understand those who would reach for coercive suppression of dissent on that effort. However, we believe that history, even very recent history, gives a clear warning that even if it were not a disastrous precedent, it would also be an own goal. We think that much of the current vaccine skepticism in NZ might be attributable to the hostility shown by our institutions to any expression of views thought to be disloyal to the ‘team of 5 million”. 

The official advice in NZ was against mask wearing for many months after it was prompted by practice in Asian. Then we made it mandatory. More examples exist than space would allow to recite  scientific orthodoxies found to be diametrically wrong, such as the decades long fight against the malignant effects of fats in butter, without reference to the negative effects of sugar. In many  cases the settled beliefs of scientists were proven wrong by brave and unpopular individuals, properly applying the scientific method. Frequently they had to popularise their work outside the scientific ‘community’. This method only operates effectively where free speech is protected.

Science needs free speech. It could not and did not emerge where the pious could enforce their views on what would be dangerous to social cohesion. Attempts to suppress dissent among professionals compromises science. 

Tolerance, not respect, is the essence of free speech. 

As dangerous as misinformation may be, censorship and an unwillingness to engage in debate and discussion also brings with it huge risks. Put simply, censorship doesn’t work. It more often draws sympathetic attention to  the ideas it seeks to suppress. If suspicion of power is at the root of a conspiracy theories, shutting down speech on a topic so that only a government’s narrative is permissible is fertiliser for mistrust. 

As impatient as we may be during a crisis, the price of staying an open society is being ready and willing to challenge ill-informed positions with better information. The relative few on the fringe will be bolstered by suppression, viewing it as validating their mission. Rather than shielding a poor idea (or a good idea) from scrutiny with censorship, a citizenship responsibility is to endure expression of ideas we detest, because that is part of the golden rule. To be sure of being free to express our own views, and to find out what others think, we need a shared and universal upholding of the right to express wrong views; and the right, to challenge them. 

We need the humility to remember the possibility that any of us may be wrong, even in our most fervent beliefs but through the debate and counter-debate enabled by free speech, truth will out.  

“You can’t joke about that”.

This was the response I got from a local commissioner to what remains my dream project — a comedy show based in a South Auckland instant loans company.

The chap was dead wrong, of course. The bleakness and danger these businesses pose to lower-socio-economic communities is exactly why they so desperately required ridiculing.

A good comedic grilling can be every bit as effective as investigative journalism. If anything, the comic has the advantage in that laughter is the sweetest medicine available to aid the consumption of some incredible bitter pills.

Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special “The Closer”, has generated controversy over his alleged “hate speech” aimed at the trans-community. At times, it echoed Richard Pryor’s disastrous appearance at a Hollywood Bowl gay rights fundraiser in 1977. At the event, a high-as-a-kite Pryor both confessed to having had gay sex (a huge admission for a major star in 1977) and launched an abuse-laden tirade at the audience for not being better allies to the black community. Chappelle also took aim at the LGBT community, telling his audience at one point “Gay people are minorities until they need to be white again”. A cursory understanding of wokeism makes clear why such a statement would be so wounding. But surely a black comedian has every right to level such a criticism, if that’s what they truly believe? The outrage at the special seems a strange abandonment of the woke imperative to listen to minority voices.

The saddest irony of the allegations of hate levelled at Chappelle by his would-be cancellers is that (SPOILER ALERT) most of us were brought to tears by his account of the death of his friend that rounded out the special, a transwoman named Daphne Dorman, who was incidentally harassed by an online mob for having previously supported Chappelle, only days before she committed suicide. With so many activists determined to associate the trans community in the wider public’s eyes with fear and censorship, the importance of his deeply moving and humanizing sketch can’t be underestimated. With it, Chappelle exposed that the oft-promoted suspicion — that society is bogged down with latent hatred, is really a fraud. Like Chappelle, most people are questioners — on a range of topics — yet we rarely forget the humanity of our fellow citizens.

By communicating this, Chappelle proves (as if there was ever real doubt) that the funniest people in the room are also more often the smartest. And it’s this penetrating insight, this truth, and the balls to come out and say it, that makes comedy so dangerous to anyone who holds to an orthodoxy.

Free Speech doesn’t just protect disagreeable speech — by allowing for it, it actively encourages it. This is precisely so that orthodoxies will always be under attack, never safe, constantly made vulnerable.

Received wisdom, no matter how good the intention, represents the end of progress. Comedy represents the earthquakes under institutionalized thinking and does us the crucial service of turning to rumble anything that cannot pass the stress test.

Maybe we should be rating this special using the Richter Scale.

Dane Giraud is a comedy and screenwriter and is a spokesperson for the Free Speech Union.

Two years ago in Christchurch, New Zealand was subjected to an horrific act of extreme violence, in the name of ideology.

Yesterday, another terrorist attack was carried out, this time in Auckland.

Both of these despicable acts of terrorism on New Zealand soil were committed by cowards.

Both targeted innocent people who were simply going about their lives. Both used weapons instead of words. Both used violence and terror in an attempt to further their extreme agendas.

Violence in the name of ideology is the polar opposite of free speech. It is the ultimate attempt to silence those who do not share your worldview.

Differences of political and religious opinion must be navigated with reason and dialogue. Never through violence. Never through fear.

Those who refuse to resolve ideological differences with words are the ones who turn to violence. Those who refuse to respectfully engage in civil dialogue with those they disagree with are the ones who become hateful extremists in the first place.

Freedom of speech — the fundamental human right to peacefully express one’s opinion — is an inherently non-violent principle. This is why we seek to protect it.

The blame for each of these horrendous attacks is solely on the terrorists. They alone are responsible for their actions. The Muslim community of Aotearoa — still grieving and healing from March 15 — is no more represented by this extremist individual than our Australian community were represented by the Christchurch shooter.

Our deepest sympathies are with the victims of this attack and their whānau, and all those affected by it.