I was reminded of this in the latest round of my legal case against Victoria University of Wellington, which disestablished my role as a Classics lecturer at the end of 2023, only a few months after my first report for the Initiative (on administrative bloat at our universities) was published.
In a long-awaited response to my Official Information Act request, VUW sent me a number of documents. One of these was written by the professor who was Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences when I was made redundant and contains her recollections of the crucial meeting. (She claims that no notes were taken.)
In this document, the former Dean says that my research was marked down due to my lack of ‘awareness of the university’s broader research goals.’ She also says that one of the ‘limitations’ the panel perceived in my teaching had to do with ‘incorporating Māori and Pasifika perspectives.’
How exactly I was supposed to incorporate ‘Māori and Pasifika perspectives’ into my courses on ancient Greece is still something of a mystery to me. But the important thing about these expectations is that they seem to fly in the face of academic freedom.
Academic freedom means that academics have the right to conduct their own research and teaching without undue interference.
Now, I do remember hearing a little bit about the university’s ‘broader research goals’ when I was at VUW. Unfortunately, I already had my own research goals, and the right – or so I thought – to pursue them.
As for Māori and Pasifika perspectives, these are obviously important in some fields of enquiry. But what if my judgment as a scholar of ancient Greece is that they aren’t of much relevance to my subject? Am I allowed to think that without being marked down by my superiors?
Apparently not, if the former Dean’s recollections of what was said at that meeting are accurate. That is yet more evidence that New Zealand universities are undermining academic freedom rather than protecting it.
You can hear Dr James Kierstead and Dr Michael Johnston discuss this topic further on our podcast here.
Dr James Kierstead is Senior Lecturer in Classics at Victoria University of Wellington.This article was first published HERE
In a long-awaited response to my Official Information Act request, VUW sent me a number of documents. One of these was written by the professor who was Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences when I was made redundant and contains her recollections of the crucial meeting. (She claims that no notes were taken.)
In this document, the former Dean says that my research was marked down due to my lack of ‘awareness of the university’s broader research goals.’ She also says that one of the ‘limitations’ the panel perceived in my teaching had to do with ‘incorporating Māori and Pasifika perspectives.’
How exactly I was supposed to incorporate ‘Māori and Pasifika perspectives’ into my courses on ancient Greece is still something of a mystery to me. But the important thing about these expectations is that they seem to fly in the face of academic freedom.
Academic freedom means that academics have the right to conduct their own research and teaching without undue interference.
Now, I do remember hearing a little bit about the university’s ‘broader research goals’ when I was at VUW. Unfortunately, I already had my own research goals, and the right – or so I thought – to pursue them.
As for Māori and Pasifika perspectives, these are obviously important in some fields of enquiry. But what if my judgment as a scholar of ancient Greece is that they aren’t of much relevance to my subject? Am I allowed to think that without being marked down by my superiors?
Apparently not, if the former Dean’s recollections of what was said at that meeting are accurate. That is yet more evidence that New Zealand universities are undermining academic freedom rather than protecting it.
You can hear Dr James Kierstead and Dr Michael Johnston discuss this topic further on our podcast here.
Dr James Kierstead is Senior Lecturer in Classics at Victoria University of Wellington.This article was first published HERE
18 comments:
Go Dr K!
I know from my own experience that academics are unemployable here whatever their credentials as measured by publications if they don't play the political game according to the rules set by the self-appointed guardians of thought and speech. In that respect, NZ is more like North Korea than readers might like to think.
It is also a violation of the human rights of academics as it forces them to promote or be seen to promote a political agenda. Both the UK and US Supreme Courts have come down hard on this.
Unfortunately James, some of your colleagues have undermined your position by finding some sort of confected link between ancient Greece and Rome and, surprisingly, eastern Polynesian descendants of Treaty subjects. As a member of the Wellington Classics Association I am very much aware of lectures of precisely that type. Sad, but true. Good luck with your case.
Thank you for standing up and taking a case against Vic. I suppose most people quietly settle and sign non-disclosure agreements, allowing the corruption to remain hidden from public view and from public scrutiny. But it’s important that we see how the University plays its games. You have more courage and strength than most people I know.
It's all CRT Marxism which has taken over our Universities as planned all along.
Classical Marxism would have nothing to do with religion but then they discovered native religions were helpful to promote their cause of destroying Western Culture particularly the Christianity component.
The NZ primary school social studies syllabi of middle last century had Greek mythology, Maori mythology and Bible stories ( eg David and Goliath) for students to read.
To pretend these European stories can be incorporated / seen from Maori perspectives is insanity. You could say they can be compared and contrasted but to be seen through Maori lenses. How in hell do you do that ?
Where do we send our children to get higher learning now ? Certainly not Vic.
.
James, there is a meaningful link between the Polynesian perspective and ancient Greece because before the rise of Western rational thinking, beginning with the pre-Socratics, they both held beliefs in a similar pantheon of gods.
The difference today is that Maori academics at Victoria, such as Hirini Moko Mead and Ani Mikaere, not only persist with these beliefs, but also claim they are the basis of matauranga Maori (Maori knowledge) which, it is further claimed, is equivalent to European science.
They also oppose any uptake by Maoris of a belief in an Aristotelian monotheistic God, which the Maoris call Io. They want to stop the Maoris from progressing their perspective towards a scientific ‘Theory of Everything’.
I can see why you may not wish to raise that point with the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences. I dare say things would have been different when Sir Lloyd Geering was the head of the Religious Studies department.
Readers must understand that Vic uni management -- or any NZ government -- is not really interested in research or teaching. What are the university's 'broader research goals?' Well, certainly not the advancement of knowledge. Instead, it is to dictate what research lecturers should conduct--all in the hope of making the lightweight researchers at the uni feel better about themselves. No NZ university cares about workload imbalances or any equitable policies. Readers should google Kierstead's cv, as I just did, and then compare his educational background to others at Vic or any other NZ uni....
Re: Barrie Davis' article, it is implied that the Pantheon and monotheism in Maori and ancient Greek traditions are 'linked' i.e. have sprung from the same historical source, or one from the other.
Not so. The evolution of any religion tends to exhibit a number of developmental stages. The earliest is animism, which means that nature spirits (subsequently upgraded to small-g gods) are considered to be the animating principles for natural phenomena. Hundreds of gods may arise at this stage. Later, that number is reduced by having most demoted to demi-god status (inc. angels). The important ones (in practice, the ones most widely worshipped) form a Pantheon, one translation for which is 'divine council', although there may be quite a lot of bickering and squabbling among the incumbents. The god who is head of the Pantheon tends to subsequently be promoted to a big-G God and hey-ho we have monotheism.
As an interesting aside, Hinduism is usually described as a polytheistic religion but the Vedanta tradition in the Middle Ages brought about the concept that all the gods are incarnations of the one Supreme God, making it effectively a monotheistic branch of the religion.
There are parallels between the evolution of religion in the case of the Greeks, the Maoris, and any other ethno-cultural group one may wish to invoke, but the word 'links' is misleading as is the suggestion that monotheism has a single point or shared origin.
According to A I , Barend's view may be the prevailing view in academia . But surely the discussion here is about how academia have gone off the rails . For me they are influenced by materialistic Marxism, which has nothing but contempt for any Christian perspective and are instead determined to promote that religions are entirely manmade and said to evolve in a certain way to support their personal world view.
I therefore support Barrie's view . AI even mentions evidence to support it .Read it for yourself. I have native American in-laws who talk of the Great White Spirit a single moral Supreme Creator, they believed in before Western influence as well as the evidence of a most isolated hunter -gatherer group - Australian Aborigines who also did.
Many native peoples also have a variation of the creation story and a cataclysmic flood account. Gaynor
In response to Barend Vlaardingerbroek above, I do not think that Maori and ancient Greek traditions have sprung from the same historical source, but that they have come from the same psychological source.
I give the argument for my assertions here:
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/08/barrie-davis-matauranga-maori-is-myth.html
Re: Anon 1226, when I studied this stuff at varsity many moons ago marxofascism had not yet taken over the social sciences and humanities (well, not completely yet). Besides, the model of the evolution of religions had already been around for the best part of a century.
Fortunately, we don't all operate at the intellectual base level where we make observed facts fit some 'personal world view'. I'm quite happy for them to tell their own story, which in this instance is a fairly straightforward one, although there are some ongoing discussions about the role of ancestral worship in this process.
When dealing with the supposed belief systems of primitive people long gone, we have to be very wary of cross-pollination from beliefs brought by Western missionaries. We are dealing with oral histories that have a remarkable tendency to undergo major changes in response to external influences.
Of course all primitive aetiologies include creation myths. I've never come across one that didn't. Assuming them to have all come from a single point source in the Levant is stretching things rather a lot, though. Most aetiologies make reference to natural disasters in the past to explain how things are today too. That includes floods. I noticed in PNG that coastal peoples often/usually presented mythologies including an early time when the world was rather wetter than one would like. However, not a word about them in Highlands 'tumbuna stories' ('ancestral tales') except where these had clearly been introduced by Western missionaries.
Incidentally, I hadn't consulted AI about this issue.
I believe I see a bias there Barend about 'Noah's' Flood which very many cultures recorded as a cataclysmic event including Aztecs who lived in a very dry area, a term AI used not me.
I hesitated to use the word 'evolutionary beliefs or atheist ones which often share the common agenda of discrediting Christianity and scripture to promote their own world view.
That native peoples already had monotheistic beliefs that doesn't fit your evolving religions thesis and it is speculation that it had to have been acquired from Missionaries. Missionaries frequently found their work considerably easier if the tribe already had monotheistic beliefs and discerning ones looked into this thoroughly before preaching their message. Many record surprise to find how much even untouched and very isolated native people already believed about the 'Hebrew God' like Aborigines. . This includes Native Americans. Although being closer to the Middle East there may have been contact really early on. Nobody knows. Some hunter -gatherers are polytheistic for thousands of years.
As time goes on archaeologists are confirming the accuracy of the bible historically as they excavate more information. However not for one instant do I believe Christians never have bias as well but it's unfair to say all do, always. Gaynor
if there was true academic freedom, we would know the name of the Dean, not have read between the lines for her details....
Now listen good, children. Once upon a time there was lotsa rain and it rained and rained and then the water reached the tippy-top of Mt Everest. Everything drowned but there were animals on a boat including kangaroos and wallabies and kiwis and kakapos that splish-sploshed their way back to Aussie and NZ afterwards. They didn't need directions 'cos they'd splish-sploshed their way to the Middle East from Aussie in the first place.
A bit far-fetched? I reckon so too. Kinda like the claim of archaeologists confirming the accuracy of a compendium of puerile tribal myths. It certainly doesn't include the team from Tel Aviv Uni who concluded that the exodus was just so much bunkum.
But there's no point discussing adult issues with those who don't have the intellectual maturity to deal with them.
The bottom line is that Kierstead is teaching a course on Ancient Greece. He should not be compelled or pressured to add anything on Maori or Pasifika perspectives or histories. Should an Advanced Calculus course be so compelled? Let's say I teach Maori Studies 101. Should I be compelled to teach Inuit histories? Histories of indigenous peoples from, say, Kenya? If I teach Maori oral traditions and methods, should I be compelled to teach dozens of different oral history methods from societies throughout Africa? Universities are places of academic freedom whose goal should be knowledge advancement. That means engaging in important scholarly debates in a global setting.
Anonymous @ 3:45 PM, you are quite right.
The unfortunate situation we are in, is that we are being forced to accept maorification in our universities, schools and legislation by lying (partnership), cheating (he puapua) and propaganda (PIJF).
It is worse in Britain where people are being jailed for their language on social media and those overseas say they cannot return to their country for fear of being arrested at the airport.
It is now starting to happen in the US too. If you haven’t already, you make like to check the recent travels of Tommy Robinson.
We are witnessing the downfall of the West due to the exploitation of our liberal culture together with the abandonment of the democracy which our parents supposedly fought wars to preserve.
Anonymous 4;33 PM. We are being forced to have Maorification in our schools largely because Maori are over- represented in all welfare statistics , prison statistics and low paid jobs .
This is because we have the longest tail of academic underachievement in the developed world and too many Maori are in that tail. Listen to Maori radicals -they frequently quote the jail statistics as proof Maori have been damaged by colonialism.
Not so.
This long tail began in the 1990s after Marxism was introduced into our education system in the 1970s. Progressive Education which is aligned to Marxism and the brain child of an aggressive atheist and socialist John Dewey who promoted teaching methods, content and discipline that have selectively damaged lower income students .
As long as we had the values and methods of Traditional Education based largely on Classical and Christian ideas we had a high achieving academic education and egalitarianism. But no longer since Marxism rules the roost and CRT is
the dominant ideology .
Christianity is a threat to Marxism and in education because it has /had values , discipline and methods that cognitive science now show to be effective particularly at schools. Academia , however has long since driven Christian thought out of higher learning and goes to great lengths to ridicule it. Getting Christian values like free speech and truth and rigour in academia back is an uphill battle.
The West has lost its soul because of losing its Christian foundations. Look how the elite Universities established by Christians were once great seats of learning but are now taken over and pandering to Islam and Marxism.
I agree the current war , like WW2 has the same enemy - those anti the West and anti semitism .
Gaynor
'Gaynor': Christian values like free speech and truth and rigour?!!! Christianity, like many religions, has a long history of punishing free speech. Christianity was responsible for many centuries of European dark ages during which truth was repressed.
How dare you disrespect the lived experience of Maori who, even now, spiritually communicate with their cousins in Ancient Greece? By traveling back in time, Maori taught the Greeks everything they knew. Time travel is yet another right guaranteed by Te Tiriti that has been stared down by Colin's-eye-asian.
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