So no matter whether you’re studying engineering, accounting, science or arts, you will have to enrol in one of the Waipapa Taumata Rau (WTR) papers, even if you have no interest in the topic and can’t see how being instructed in te Ao Māori is relevant to the subjects you want to specialise in.
And you will have to pay for the privilege of being railroaded onto the course — with international students paying up to $5730 for the paper. Perhaps most alarmingly, students have to pass to be entitled to move on to second-year studies.
How anyone imagines that will make the university more attractive to either domestic or international students is baffling. But that is evidently not its purpose. The compulsory course plays a key part in indigenising — or decolonising — the university.
The decolonisation programme — which, according to one definition, aims to “dismantle the colonial, Euro-centric structures and knowledge systems that have historically dominated universities in order to privilege Māori ways of knowing, being and doing” — has been underway for several years. This has been done with the blessing and encouragement of the university’s management, including the current Vice-Chancellor, Dawn Freshwater.
Eru Kapa-Kingi — a vice-president of Te Pāti Māori who develops and teaches courses for Law School — said in an Auckland University newsletter this month: “We need to start realising that universities were one of the primary tools of colonisation in Aotearoa, replacing Māori philosophy, Māori ways of thinking, speaking and acting. That places an obligation on academics today to really contribute to the deeper, longer-term decolonisation project.”
The possibility that the university’s reputation might suffer irreparable damage as a result is undoubtedly not seen as a negative outcome by its advocates. As one Auckland University teacher put it: “The activist academics don’t care. They want to destroy the universities and replace them with what would in effect be seminaries [for Māori nationalist aspirations]. So it’s win-win for them.”
Last September, Elizabeth Rata, a professor in the Education Faculty, told The Platform’s Michael Laws that she thought the effect of the decolonisation programme would be to ultimately “turn the university into a faith-based institution, like a wananga, or a seminary, or a madras. It will mean a university is no longer a university in the sense we understand… a place for the discovery of new knowledge, for the testing, for the refutation of the knowledge that we currently have.”
Decolonisation essentially means elevating a Māori worldview and ensuring it has at least equal status with that of the Pakeha “oppressors”. And although the three successful parties in the coalition government campaigned in 2023 on ending co-governance — which is based on an interpretation of the Treaty as an equal “partnership” — the university is ploughing on.
This month, David Seymour said he was frustrated the university hadn’t “quite got the memo that the people changed the government”.
“I’ve had so many constituents in [my] Epsom electorate who are students who say this [compulsory course] is not only not of interest to us but more importantly it’s a perversion of academic freedom.”
The name of the course is significant in regard to academic freedom. “Waipapa Taumata Rau” is the name Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei gifted to Auckland University in 2021, and is now part of its official title. So students will be studying a mandatory course that has the university’s explicit imprimatur. Inevitably, most will see it as representing an official view, which may make them unconfident about challenging the validity of the material presented to them.
The details of what is taught differ between faculties but they all promote the idea that knowledge is associated with a particular place — including “our university, our city and our country, and why it matters for knowledge taught in your faculty”.
“Situated knowledge” is opposed to the idea there are universal, objective truths that are independent of the context in which they are formed. An example is mātauranga Māori — or traditional Māori lore, which mixes spiritual and empirical elements. It is “situated knowledge” that differs from iwi to iwi and hapū to hapū.
It is not easy to find material from the current course given it has only been offered since the beginning of this semester. However, a discussion paper among the teaching resources students were given in the non-compulsory pilot science course last year included the following paragraphs:
“Mātauranga Māori and other Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing have been (and continue to be) seen through the lens of Western/Eurocentric scholarship as subordinate to academic and especially scientific knowledge systems.
“This tends to come hand-in-hand with failing to recognise mātauranga and other Indigenous knowledge systems as long-standing, robust, ongoing, and dynamic, as opposed to being static things of the past… Starting with such recognition provides a basis for discussions of complementarity and compatibility, rather than contests of epistemic validity.”
It is worth noting the last sentence, which slyly positions mātauranga Māori as complementary to and compatible with science, and suggests the exercise is not a contest of epistemic validity. What is science, you might wonder, if it isn’t a “contest of epistemic validity”?
It is clear that what are presented as “knowledge systems” are really “belief systems”. Nick Matzke, a senior lecturer at the university’s School of Biological Sciences made that point to the Senate at the beginning of March regarding last year’s science pilot:
“The course includes the following as elements of Indigenous ‘knowledge systems’— ‘ancestral forces’, and ‘mauri’, which refers to the ‘life essence in all things’. The course also states, ‘Māori knowledge systems, like many others, understand the beginnings of the universe in terms of light and dark.’
“These statements raise obvious questions. What is the evidence for ancestral forces, or for a life essence in all things, including non-living things? Are these statements of belief, or knowledge? What is the difference between belief and knowledge, and between ‘belief systems’ and ‘knowledge systems’? Wouldn’t a variety of religious views, including creationism, be ‘knowledge systems’ under this framework?”
Matzke also raised the question of how students who challenge aspects of the course content will be treated. “Given that the university has, for several years, been pushing very hard on the importance and value of indigenous knowledge, and systematically avoiding any opportunity for normal academic critical discussion of it, it needs to be asked: If a student dares to question, in an assessment, inside or outside of class, whether or not some supernatural claim in an indigenous knowledge system is actually knowledge, or asks for the evidence that the claim is true, will they be penalised [with a lower grade]?”
Students have to pass the course to continue their studies, and poor marks may affect their opportunities for future study by lowering their first-year grade average.
A university spokesperson has confirmed the grade a student achieves will be included in their overall first-year grade average — “in all degrees”, except those “seeking selection into clinical programmes in their second year of study (Medicine, Pharmacy, Optometry and Medical Imaging). They must pass the WTR course, but the grade will not be used in the grade-point average calculation as part of that clinical selection.”
Why these four courses have been deemed worthy of a dispensation has not been explained but it seems to be a tacit acknowledgment that the university understands including WTR results in a student's grade-point average may present problems.
Students at Auckland University will be hoping that criticising any aspects of the compulsory WRT courses won’t see them marked down — or labelled as racists. But given the implementation of the courses has been driven by activists, both seem to be possible outcomes.
Certainly, some dissenting students at Massey University who enrolled in its compulsory courses based on decolonisation ideology were viewed as racist.
A Massey University document noted in 2022: “Some students complained about (left) bias, a lack of ‘balance’, and the way in which ‘all the woes of the world (are) blamed on British colonialism’. While overt racist statements are thankfully rare, racism was inherent in some students’ comments and course work and needed careful management, particularly in a classroom or online class forum.”
Auckland University, of course, is no stranger to treating critics of decolonisation as heretics to be silenced. That fact goes some way to explaining why so few academics have been willing to speak up publicly in opposition to the WRT programme.
Yet it is clear that some do not like the path the university is following. Emeritus Professor Jerry Coyne — a world-renowned evolutionary biologist from Chicago University who has written repeatedly on mātauranga Māori and science — has said he receives emails regularly outlining the concerns of disaffected Auckland University academics who ask not to be publicly identified.
This week, Coyne quoted on his blog “Why Evolution is True” an anonymous correspondent’s complaint about the WRT course: “This is not what we thought we were agreeing to when we supported affirmative action to increase the proportion of Māori academics, but it’s what we got. This guy [Eru Kapa-Kingi] is basically using his university position to further the political interests of Te Pāti Māori.”
Academics’ desire for anonymity should not be surprising given the uproar that followed the publication of a letter to the Listener titled “In Defence of Science” in mid-2021. The seven signatories, all professors at Auckland University, made what should have been an uncontentious statement: “Indigenous knowledge may indeed help advance scientific knowledge in some ways, but it is not science.”
The professors’ 300-word letter was written in response to plans to include mātauranga Māori in the school science curriculum and to give it equal standing with “Western/ Pakeha epistemologies” — which means subjects such as physics, biology and chemistry.
The professors were immediately engulfed in a firestorm of hostility — which included an open letter signed by more than 2000 academics and researchers weighing in against them as well as slurs from fellow academics who dismissed them as “shuffling zombies” and “racists”.
As a result, Auckland University academics who might have wanted to put their heads above the parapet in solidarity with the professors would have seen very quickly that heresy is extremely costly. The professors’ dismal experience functioned as a cautionary tale for anyone else in academia who might take their statutory role as “critic and conscience of society” with regard to the decolonisation project seriously.
It should come as little surprise, therefore, that activists within the university have met with very little resistance to their plan to impose a particular view of Te Tiriti and mātauranga Māori on thousands of students — even if it means New Zealand’s biggest and most prestigious tertiary institute is “committing academic suicide through identity politics”, as Coyne described it.
Graham Adams is an Auckland-based freelance editor, journalist and columnist. This article was sourced HERE
How anyone imagines that will make the university more attractive to either domestic or international students is baffling. But that is evidently not its purpose. The compulsory course plays a key part in indigenising — or decolonising — the university.
The decolonisation programme — which, according to one definition, aims to “dismantle the colonial, Euro-centric structures and knowledge systems that have historically dominated universities in order to privilege Māori ways of knowing, being and doing” — has been underway for several years. This has been done with the blessing and encouragement of the university’s management, including the current Vice-Chancellor, Dawn Freshwater.
Eru Kapa-Kingi — a vice-president of Te Pāti Māori who develops and teaches courses for Law School — said in an Auckland University newsletter this month: “We need to start realising that universities were one of the primary tools of colonisation in Aotearoa, replacing Māori philosophy, Māori ways of thinking, speaking and acting. That places an obligation on academics today to really contribute to the deeper, longer-term decolonisation project.”
The possibility that the university’s reputation might suffer irreparable damage as a result is undoubtedly not seen as a negative outcome by its advocates. As one Auckland University teacher put it: “The activist academics don’t care. They want to destroy the universities and replace them with what would in effect be seminaries [for Māori nationalist aspirations]. So it’s win-win for them.”
Last September, Elizabeth Rata, a professor in the Education Faculty, told The Platform’s Michael Laws that she thought the effect of the decolonisation programme would be to ultimately “turn the university into a faith-based institution, like a wananga, or a seminary, or a madras. It will mean a university is no longer a university in the sense we understand… a place for the discovery of new knowledge, for the testing, for the refutation of the knowledge that we currently have.”
Decolonisation essentially means elevating a Māori worldview and ensuring it has at least equal status with that of the Pakeha “oppressors”. And although the three successful parties in the coalition government campaigned in 2023 on ending co-governance — which is based on an interpretation of the Treaty as an equal “partnership” — the university is ploughing on.
This month, David Seymour said he was frustrated the university hadn’t “quite got the memo that the people changed the government”.
“I’ve had so many constituents in [my] Epsom electorate who are students who say this [compulsory course] is not only not of interest to us but more importantly it’s a perversion of academic freedom.”
The name of the course is significant in regard to academic freedom. “Waipapa Taumata Rau” is the name Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei gifted to Auckland University in 2021, and is now part of its official title. So students will be studying a mandatory course that has the university’s explicit imprimatur. Inevitably, most will see it as representing an official view, which may make them unconfident about challenging the validity of the material presented to them.
The details of what is taught differ between faculties but they all promote the idea that knowledge is associated with a particular place — including “our university, our city and our country, and why it matters for knowledge taught in your faculty”.
“Situated knowledge” is opposed to the idea there are universal, objective truths that are independent of the context in which they are formed. An example is mātauranga Māori — or traditional Māori lore, which mixes spiritual and empirical elements. It is “situated knowledge” that differs from iwi to iwi and hapū to hapū.
It is not easy to find material from the current course given it has only been offered since the beginning of this semester. However, a discussion paper among the teaching resources students were given in the non-compulsory pilot science course last year included the following paragraphs:
“Mātauranga Māori and other Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing have been (and continue to be) seen through the lens of Western/Eurocentric scholarship as subordinate to academic and especially scientific knowledge systems.
“This tends to come hand-in-hand with failing to recognise mātauranga and other Indigenous knowledge systems as long-standing, robust, ongoing, and dynamic, as opposed to being static things of the past… Starting with such recognition provides a basis for discussions of complementarity and compatibility, rather than contests of epistemic validity.”
It is worth noting the last sentence, which slyly positions mātauranga Māori as complementary to and compatible with science, and suggests the exercise is not a contest of epistemic validity. What is science, you might wonder, if it isn’t a “contest of epistemic validity”?
It is clear that what are presented as “knowledge systems” are really “belief systems”. Nick Matzke, a senior lecturer at the university’s School of Biological Sciences made that point to the Senate at the beginning of March regarding last year’s science pilot:
“The course includes the following as elements of Indigenous ‘knowledge systems’— ‘ancestral forces’, and ‘mauri’, which refers to the ‘life essence in all things’. The course also states, ‘Māori knowledge systems, like many others, understand the beginnings of the universe in terms of light and dark.’
“These statements raise obvious questions. What is the evidence for ancestral forces, or for a life essence in all things, including non-living things? Are these statements of belief, or knowledge? What is the difference between belief and knowledge, and between ‘belief systems’ and ‘knowledge systems’? Wouldn’t a variety of religious views, including creationism, be ‘knowledge systems’ under this framework?”
Matzke also raised the question of how students who challenge aspects of the course content will be treated. “Given that the university has, for several years, been pushing very hard on the importance and value of indigenous knowledge, and systematically avoiding any opportunity for normal academic critical discussion of it, it needs to be asked: If a student dares to question, in an assessment, inside or outside of class, whether or not some supernatural claim in an indigenous knowledge system is actually knowledge, or asks for the evidence that the claim is true, will they be penalised [with a lower grade]?”
Students have to pass the course to continue their studies, and poor marks may affect their opportunities for future study by lowering their first-year grade average.
A university spokesperson has confirmed the grade a student achieves will be included in their overall first-year grade average — “in all degrees”, except those “seeking selection into clinical programmes in their second year of study (Medicine, Pharmacy, Optometry and Medical Imaging). They must pass the WTR course, but the grade will not be used in the grade-point average calculation as part of that clinical selection.”
Why these four courses have been deemed worthy of a dispensation has not been explained but it seems to be a tacit acknowledgment that the university understands including WTR results in a student's grade-point average may present problems.
Students at Auckland University will be hoping that criticising any aspects of the compulsory WRT courses won’t see them marked down — or labelled as racists. But given the implementation of the courses has been driven by activists, both seem to be possible outcomes.
Certainly, some dissenting students at Massey University who enrolled in its compulsory courses based on decolonisation ideology were viewed as racist.
A Massey University document noted in 2022: “Some students complained about (left) bias, a lack of ‘balance’, and the way in which ‘all the woes of the world (are) blamed on British colonialism’. While overt racist statements are thankfully rare, racism was inherent in some students’ comments and course work and needed careful management, particularly in a classroom or online class forum.”
Auckland University, of course, is no stranger to treating critics of decolonisation as heretics to be silenced. That fact goes some way to explaining why so few academics have been willing to speak up publicly in opposition to the WRT programme.
Yet it is clear that some do not like the path the university is following. Emeritus Professor Jerry Coyne — a world-renowned evolutionary biologist from Chicago University who has written repeatedly on mātauranga Māori and science — has said he receives emails regularly outlining the concerns of disaffected Auckland University academics who ask not to be publicly identified.
This week, Coyne quoted on his blog “Why Evolution is True” an anonymous correspondent’s complaint about the WRT course: “This is not what we thought we were agreeing to when we supported affirmative action to increase the proportion of Māori academics, but it’s what we got. This guy [Eru Kapa-Kingi] is basically using his university position to further the political interests of Te Pāti Māori.”
Academics’ desire for anonymity should not be surprising given the uproar that followed the publication of a letter to the Listener titled “In Defence of Science” in mid-2021. The seven signatories, all professors at Auckland University, made what should have been an uncontentious statement: “Indigenous knowledge may indeed help advance scientific knowledge in some ways, but it is not science.”
The professors’ 300-word letter was written in response to plans to include mātauranga Māori in the school science curriculum and to give it equal standing with “Western/ Pakeha epistemologies” — which means subjects such as physics, biology and chemistry.
The professors were immediately engulfed in a firestorm of hostility — which included an open letter signed by more than 2000 academics and researchers weighing in against them as well as slurs from fellow academics who dismissed them as “shuffling zombies” and “racists”.
As a result, Auckland University academics who might have wanted to put their heads above the parapet in solidarity with the professors would have seen very quickly that heresy is extremely costly. The professors’ dismal experience functioned as a cautionary tale for anyone else in academia who might take their statutory role as “critic and conscience of society” with regard to the decolonisation project seriously.
It should come as little surprise, therefore, that activists within the university have met with very little resistance to their plan to impose a particular view of Te Tiriti and mātauranga Māori on thousands of students — even if it means New Zealand’s biggest and most prestigious tertiary institute is “committing academic suicide through identity politics”, as Coyne described it.
Graham Adams is an Auckland-based freelance editor, journalist and columnist. This article was sourced HERE
37 comments:
And not a word from Luxon and those that hide behind him!
I have degrees from Auckland and Otago Unis and am starting to wonder whether I really want to have to see them when I go into my study in the morning. Fortunately they're offset by degrees from Curtin and Queensland U's. Mind you, the way things are going in Aus you might end up with the same bullshit in their uni's.
Overt indoctrination based on ideology .
What next? An obligatory test for all non-Maori citizens who must then wear a "pass badge" for random checks by special " culture police" ?
This is a direct challenge to the elected Coalition and shows to what point National is failing its voters.
2026 will be D-Day.
I have two degrees from University of AUCKLAND - not some Mori outfit, and I have withdrawn all support of the place. I had planned scholarship funding. Thats removed. Refuse to respond to invitations to this and that..... They've gone maaaad under the new VC... an ex-psych nurse !
Goebbels would be delighted !
Third Reich type propaganda at its best.
It is so embarrassing to know that at our top University compels students to take and pass a racist paper on fictional science.
Show me evidence of any of this "science "
Prove to me that prior to European contact that Maori had any sort of education that involved science.
Show me anything that maori discovered that had not been known to the rest of the world.
(I can show you plenty of simple things that never found such as pottery, or the wheel).
AKL University has not only devalued every degree it has ever awarded, but also made it a running joke for the rest of the academic world.
How many careers have they now ruined ?
MfK
Presumably these courses will also cover the facts that the ‘Māori knowledge systems were based around those elements of indigenous knowledge including such acts as cannibalism, slavery and infanticide etc.
Radical left wing indoctrination facilities. The only way is to start squeezing tax payer funding, come on government get on with it.
If Auckland Uni is acting out a death wish, then Vice Chancellor Dawn Freshwater must take responsibility for a fair few nails in the coffin.
They've just guaranteed that Auckland University will be excluded from my own kids higher education considerations list. Any other kiwi Universities following will guarantee my kids take on any higher education overseas....which also guarantees that they will contribute to NZ's brain drain.
But they're not "Maori" so they're second class citizens here anyway.
It also guarantees that their parents will start funnelling investment offshore whenever possible as well.
C'Mon National! Get your act together and start doing what we all voted for!
I once did course assignment at university on "Garden Gnomes".
Of course I failed the assignment...
But I had no idea Auckland University is now administered by such creatures.
Not a word from the Auckland University Students Association!
Only the 2 appointed Maori members of the association are in any way shape or form are part Maori - everyone else on the association is every other colour and creed from all different nationality backgrounds.
Are they scared of being called racist's - not realising that this is actually racism towards all of them...racism that is going to hit their back pockets, devalue their degrees, while shoving utter nonsense down their throats?
Oh, dear - enjoy the hysteria, folks: I'm sure it's fun.... Tho' even my cat is now finding the histrionic approach to Maori tedious.
O Omniscient One ( and your Mensa-level cat):
this is geo-politics ( not histrionics - an easy diversionary tactic) . This is not even not about Maori ( just the local context example) .
This is a global issue. Consider expanding your limited horizons.
We are Not Alone.... none other than Oxford University recently is now wokely planning to undo 800 years of Bachelors/Masters degrees .... because its y'know its.... Jaysus wept... University academics are now MAAAAAD as!!! Run screaming from academia !!!
Refer Oxford Uni of late!!!!
Really anon at 11.17am ???? It ain't histrionic it's objecting to mandatory/compulsory racism. Being told what to think by the intellectually inadequate is also known as totalitarianism.Maori culture was a stone age culture. They were a people who were so backward they hadn't even discovered the wheel. Being forced to"learn" this crap benefits no one and is wrecking the academic status of Auckland University. Wake up!
The enormity, irrationality, absurdity, seriousness, racism, blatant politics and effect of the University policy warrants far more extreme response than any of the above. As a colonist accompaniment, your cat should have areas of concern also.
Hi Moderator
My post of a few moments ago meant to follow the 11.17 a.m Anonymous post, not the first. I do not know about others but my ancient computer very jumpy on BV.
Latest rumour is that the University of Auckland has unveiled a new honorific to be granted to all graduates of this course to be titled ‘FFB’ (Freshwater for Brains) in recognition of simply being near such great intellect during their time of study. Sources within employer groups have suggested however that FFB is only slightly better than the ‘SFB’ honorific that employers already add ‘through an informal internal process’ to credentials of university graduates throughout the country, especially those who have chalked-up a $50,000 student loan while pursuing a ‘worthless’ degree.
Sorry, Robert Arthur, I have no control over where the computer places a comment.
The real question is how would Mr. Kapa-Kingi have spelled the word Aotearoa in or around 1620?
Without the very colonialist concept he rails against he would still be in the dark, sans an alphabet and written language with which he has used to advance his academic careerism of anti-colonial, pro maori supremicist cause.......
Sadder still it is the indolent and ignorant that are either complicit or too casual about the very concepts he speaks and lives by that will eventually, having his way find you unwelcome in New Zealand unless like him you too hold his views........
This begs a very big question. Why government inaction? How difficult would it be to impose a sinking lid on funds ... every transgression and the lid sinks further and money is directed to more ethical institutions.
In truth what we are seeing is the enforcement of a new state religion (pantheism) and its imminent union with a corrupted and tone deaf legislature.
Every union of religion and state has resulted in suppression of free speech and persecution of dissenting voices. Union of religion (pagan or otherwise) places those in power beyond questioning. So it isn't a coincidence that parliament is so quiet on this.
Now Auckland University insists that students learn this so called Maori science, which is so good that it enabled pre contact Maori to live to the ripe old age of 30 years with their really wonderful medicine and remedies.
Years ago an AU PhD student proved that Maori had no concept of ingesting something to cure an illness.
I expect that any warrior wounded in their continual battles to death died of their injuries without treatment or ended up as a protein source for the victor's?
Of course, pre contact they lived in idyllic villages with safe food storage systems, hot and cold running water, safe dry insulated houses, and a fully functioning sewage system - go to Auckland University and find out how they achieved all this , and how we should all revert to their highly developed society.
To be enlightened as how Maori achieved this, enroll at Auckland University for the bargain price of only $6,000 plus books (in te reo) !
Luxon, get off your backside and stamp this ridiculous nonsense.
In countries where the state and religion are one there is little freedom for anyone.....look to Iran for a clue.
Out goes all minority groups rights followed by those of women......are we done yet NZ?
One of the great fathers of Western Science , Newton states that he did not believe religious material should be included in science , not because he himself didn't believe in a spiritual dimension to life but because a religious belief was a very personal choice and allowing one religion to dominate ruined this .
I always thought freedom to practise religion in Western Culture also meant freedom from religion as well. Hence a tolerance for atheism.
Western Science has a unique paradigm which includes significantly truth and every other civilization only developed technology not true science although the methods of science can be transferred to other cultures.
One of the main reasons science developed in the West , particularly in the 16th Century.was because of freedom of speech and thought not tolerated so freely in other cultures at the time.
What is happening at Auckland U. is the death of Western Academia there and little of value will come out of this institution that will be useful for anybody including Maori. Technology is not science.
The plight of Maori in society with respect to being in the long tail of underachievement disproportionately is not because of colonisation but because we embraced Progressivism in education which was hellbent on stamping out traditional values including Christian ones. Any other religion was tolerated . We need to reinstate traditional values. and methods of education. Freedom and truth.
With this step, how will National campaign in 2026 re. Maorification with any credibility ( even if the economy is booming )? Nat/Luxon and all MPs have lost all voter confidence on this issue.
Possible plan: Nat and Labour are planning a government of "national unity" - where both parties see the Maorification issue through the same lens and collude to get He Puapua over the line. Far fetched?
Excellent article, Graham.
You have described the woke self destruction very clearly.
I am a retired pharmacist, and can state categorically that this enforced propaganda is contrary to all good professional practice, where patients are respected and treated as individuals.
All sane New Zealanders owe Graham Adams a vote of thanks, as the only journalist who tells it how it is. Please keep up the good work!
The other salient point: more undergraduate students are interested in learning about the big wide world than NZ/Oz/Pacifica. Just look at enrolment per course data, any university.
Totally agree Anon @ 5:20pm. Grahams articles are entirely on another level.
It’s well-past time to defund the University of Auckland. No taxpayer funding for subversion.
AMEN.... and AMEN to that. You fully grasp what has been going on!!!
And this is all predicated on the belief that early 19th century Maori life and civilisation is something worthy of emulating and has much to teach us in the 21st century? But oh, yes, we have that purported Treaty obligation to protect Maori culture, never mind that the Treaty only conveyed the protection of their possessions and their rights as British subjects. With this woke stupidity and mandatory racist claptrap, Auckland University deserves everything that will inevitably come its way, and much of that derision should fairly rest with VC Freshwater. That is unless, of course, Auckland University hasn't quietly been accorded personhood status? In which case it would only have itself to blame and perhaps is the reason why our elected Govt seems happy to sit idly by while an act of financial and reputational suicide is in progress - to an institution that owes its very existence to the taxpayer.
Erica Stanford, our Minister of Education, is oddly silent on this issue. Why is that Erica?
In their uni's what? Your degrees were not, apparently, in English.
Correction: Penny Simmonds is Ministry for Tertiary Education. We should be hearing from Penny and perhaps Erica too.
Ihcporo, it is common practice in written English to use an apostrophe for a plural when dealing with an abbreviation and where simply adding the -s would produce a word that doesn't exist. 'Unis' for instance would be pronounced 'you-nis' rather than the plural 'you-nees' hence the apostrophe.
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