Along with the things one might expect in a VC, like an outstanding academic record and experience in senior management, the jobs ads all emphasise Treaty of Waitangi considerations. The Massey ad says that ‘Te Tiriti principles are central to its governance and operations.’ Canterbury University wants its new VC to ‘embed Te Tiriti principles across all aspects of university life.’ The University of Auckland claims that ‘a commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi is fundamental to its future direction.’
These statements are all rather vague. Victoria University of Wellington is more specific. It will require its new VC to “promote mātauranga Māori through all aspects of learning, teaching and research.”
The Treaty is foundational document for New Zealand. But the way it is invoked in these statements has implications for the institutional neutrality of universities and for academic freedom.
The Education and Training Act stipulates that universities must develop freedom-of-expression statements, committing them not to take “public positions on matters that do not directly concern their role or functions.” In other words, universities must maintain institutional neutrality on contested political matters.
The VC job ads all sit uncomfortably with that requirement. There are few things in New Zealand today more hotly contested than the role of the Treaty.
But why should universities maintain institutional neutrality?
Part of an academic’s job is to publicly contribute expertise to important policy questions. When universities take institutional positions on such questions, academics, who are their employees, may feel too intimidated to disagree with them publicly. Institutional neutrality therefore protects academics in fulfilling their public-facing roles.
It also protects the credibility of universities. If universities are seen to be politicised, people who disagree with their politics will not trust them, pay attention to them, or want to fund them. They will look for insight elsewhere.
The result will be a less trusting and more polarised society. So, while universities are free to take public positions on matters like funding for universities, they should avoid doing so on, say, the ethics of euthanasia or climate change.
Given the profound implications of Treaty debates for the future of the country, academics with relevant expertise should have a strong role in those debates. Yet several surveys in recent years have shown that the Treaty is the issue academics and students feel least comfortable discussing. When universities make open-ended statements linking Treaty principles to their operations, which include teaching and research, they risk blunting the contributions dissenting academics might make.
As well as threatening institutional neutrality, the Massey, Canterbury and Auckland statements might also infringe academic freedom. Victoria’s requirement almost certainly does.
Academic freedom, enshrined in the Education and Training Act, protects academics to teach their courses and conduct their research as they see fit, within the constraints of disciplinary norms. While the Act also affords freedom to universities to regulate courses, historically, this has been confined to deciding what courses will be offered.
Some interpretations of Treaty principles would have no impact on academic freedom. For example, if a university established a programme to help Māori students succeed, there would be no problem. On the other hand, if Treaty principles were invoked to control course content, there would.
Victoria’s requirement signals an explicit requirement for academics to include certain content in their courses and an intention to regulates the conduct and focus of their research. In so doing, it risks overriding the disciplinary expertise of academics. Imposing course content that has nothing to do with the discipline within which a course is situated is overreach. It opens the door to ideological control.
If, in conducting their research and teaching, academics have to go along with things with which they disagree, they are, in effect, being forced to lie. If students have to recite political beliefs they do not hold, all they are really learning is obedience to authority.
This not a hypothetical concern. One former Victoria academic has discovered, at considerable personal cost, what dissent can mean in practice.
In 2024, Dr James Kierstead, a Senior Lecturer in classical studies at Victoria University, was made redundant. He wasn’t alone. The university was strapped for cash and many academics and administrators lost their jobs. But Dr Kierstead, who has also written several reports on universities for The New Zealand Initiative, believed there were anomalies in the process leading to his redundancy. He took legal action against the university.
Through his lawyer, Dr Kierstead obtained a document from the university outlining the reasons he was made redundant. The document noted his strong research record and contribution to teaching. However, it also cited ‘limitations’ in ‘incorporating Māori and Pasifika perspectives’ in his courses on ancient Greek history.
Vague commitments to Treaty principles and promises to incorporate mātauranga Māori in all courses and research are more than window dressing. They have real consequences, both for academics’ professional lives and for universities’ duty to protect academic freedom and integrity.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
The Treaty is foundational document for New Zealand. But the way it is invoked in these statements has implications for the institutional neutrality of universities and for academic freedom.
The Education and Training Act stipulates that universities must develop freedom-of-expression statements, committing them not to take “public positions on matters that do not directly concern their role or functions.” In other words, universities must maintain institutional neutrality on contested political matters.
The VC job ads all sit uncomfortably with that requirement. There are few things in New Zealand today more hotly contested than the role of the Treaty.
But why should universities maintain institutional neutrality?
Part of an academic’s job is to publicly contribute expertise to important policy questions. When universities take institutional positions on such questions, academics, who are their employees, may feel too intimidated to disagree with them publicly. Institutional neutrality therefore protects academics in fulfilling their public-facing roles.
It also protects the credibility of universities. If universities are seen to be politicised, people who disagree with their politics will not trust them, pay attention to them, or want to fund them. They will look for insight elsewhere.
The result will be a less trusting and more polarised society. So, while universities are free to take public positions on matters like funding for universities, they should avoid doing so on, say, the ethics of euthanasia or climate change.
Given the profound implications of Treaty debates for the future of the country, academics with relevant expertise should have a strong role in those debates. Yet several surveys in recent years have shown that the Treaty is the issue academics and students feel least comfortable discussing. When universities make open-ended statements linking Treaty principles to their operations, which include teaching and research, they risk blunting the contributions dissenting academics might make.
As well as threatening institutional neutrality, the Massey, Canterbury and Auckland statements might also infringe academic freedom. Victoria’s requirement almost certainly does.
Academic freedom, enshrined in the Education and Training Act, protects academics to teach their courses and conduct their research as they see fit, within the constraints of disciplinary norms. While the Act also affords freedom to universities to regulate courses, historically, this has been confined to deciding what courses will be offered.
Some interpretations of Treaty principles would have no impact on academic freedom. For example, if a university established a programme to help Māori students succeed, there would be no problem. On the other hand, if Treaty principles were invoked to control course content, there would.
Victoria’s requirement signals an explicit requirement for academics to include certain content in their courses and an intention to regulates the conduct and focus of their research. In so doing, it risks overriding the disciplinary expertise of academics. Imposing course content that has nothing to do with the discipline within which a course is situated is overreach. It opens the door to ideological control.
If, in conducting their research and teaching, academics have to go along with things with which they disagree, they are, in effect, being forced to lie. If students have to recite political beliefs they do not hold, all they are really learning is obedience to authority.
This not a hypothetical concern. One former Victoria academic has discovered, at considerable personal cost, what dissent can mean in practice.
In 2024, Dr James Kierstead, a Senior Lecturer in classical studies at Victoria University, was made redundant. He wasn’t alone. The university was strapped for cash and many academics and administrators lost their jobs. But Dr Kierstead, who has also written several reports on universities for The New Zealand Initiative, believed there were anomalies in the process leading to his redundancy. He took legal action against the university.
Through his lawyer, Dr Kierstead obtained a document from the university outlining the reasons he was made redundant. The document noted his strong research record and contribution to teaching. However, it also cited ‘limitations’ in ‘incorporating Māori and Pasifika perspectives’ in his courses on ancient Greek history.
Vague commitments to Treaty principles and promises to incorporate mātauranga Māori in all courses and research are more than window dressing. They have real consequences, both for academics’ professional lives and for universities’ duty to protect academic freedom and integrity.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
7 comments:
Of course university policies increasingly violate academic freedom! And universities promote only those who have drunk the Kool Aid. One main problem is that universities (and the union) do not care about disciplines or, actually, learning and the goal to increase knowledge. They also do not care about equity (unless related to race or gender or ethnicity). One academic may earn four times as much money for the university than a colleague, but be paid less. NZ universities in the very near future will all become extensions of Maori Studies, run by those with the minimum academic qualifications by world standards.
Why would NZ universities be neutral today? In the 1980s , led by radical Maori and woke academics , they were identified as one of the key national institutions to implement NZ's social-political transformation towards cultural marxism, via Critical Race Theory . The same change has occurred in Parliament itself, the public service, the judiciary, police and media. The common goal is to install tribal rule and an ethnocracy by 2040 -i.e. the He Puapua agenda. All is right on target . And, do NZers really care? If so, they would protest much more loudly .
The capture and takeover is done.
These academics are actually morons.
These places should not be taxpayer funded anymore.
Their commitment to ideology over true critical thinking has resulted in the dumbing down of students and rendered degrees from these institutions largely worthless-and useless.
If in 10yrs my kids are even attending a university (cos ai will dramatically change the world) it won’t be a nz uni.
A number of scholars made redundant by Massey in 2024 also received low scores on their answers to ‘treaty questions’, which were used as at least in part as justification for why those individuals were selected for redundancy.
Standover intimidation tactics by the Chancellery over the academics and the students.
It could be the Third Reich all over again.
Why can't we all see it ?
How do we do anything about it ?
Perhaps somebody from any university could tell me what the principles of the treaty are. Nobody else can!
This is not fundamentally about the rights of Maori, but Marxism 's agenda out to destroy Western Civilization through education. This was the aim all along of aggressive atheist Dewey's Progressive education , as well , which opened the door to Marxism.
Spelling was not to be done in schools because it was bourgeois oppressive !. This immediately produced many failures in literacy which , of course, in the case of Maori was blamed on colonisation .
What Maori most need in basic education is structured learning , backed by cognitive science and traditional methods, discipline and rich content . Maori do not fail because of colonisation which CRT declares.
Maori nor anyone else will be helped by having Te Reo , Matauranga Maori or Treaty considerations because that is and never has been the reason for their underachievement.
Marxism has invaded all areas of our culture and even internationally in the Middle East conflict where anti - Semitism has been boosted by being given the language of Marxism.
Christianity historically established many of Western Universities but that along with those associated subjects of Classicism , rigorous science and critical thinking have been pushed out being elements of Christianity.
Synthetic phonics was discovered largely by the scientific genius of Blaise Pascal a very devout Christian .Phonics was the very first thing to be cancelled out by the Progressives back in 1950.
To me cancelling out traditional classical and Christian ideas in education has opened the door to Marxism and the destruction we now see. Gaynor
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