Bob Edlin: Article Disappears To Protect Maori From Harm

Shazam – and an article disappears from NZ psychology journal to protect Maori from harm

A Maori psychologist’s peer-reviewed paper has been removed from her profession’s journal on the grounds that– wait for it – keeping it accessible could harm Māori.

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Here at PoO, we suspect it would not have harmed too many Maori, or anybody else, because scholarly articles in the Journal of the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists tend not to be widely read, let alone understood.

But who knows?

The journal is distributed directly to all members of the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists (NZCCP).

The country has around 4,000 psychologists holding current practising certificates, 1,944 of them registered as Clinical Psychologists.

But fair to say, the journal is hosted as an open-access platform on Scholastica, which means the full text of its articles is freely available online to international researchers, students, and the public without a paywall.

Its editors may well have good cause to be concerned about the article in question being read by people whose response to such solid fare might have been to head for the nearest cliff and take a leap into the hereafter. Or something similarly tragic.

At PoO, however, we harbour the suspicion that Treaty-based ideology and politics have clouded the decision to be overly-protective.

This has tarnished the journal’s reputation overseas.

According to The College Fix:

A New Zealand psychology journal recently retracted a paper questioning claims about science being a tool of “white power,” stating that it was “inconsistent” with the publication’s “values,” according to a former journal editor.

Now, the editors of the Journal of the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists are facing criticism from scholars across the globe.

Dr. Kumari Valentine, a psychologist and former editor of the journal, raised concerns about the retraction in an article on the substack Psychology at the Crossroads.

“My concern is not simply about the removal of one article. It is about whether our response to disagreement is engagement or exclusion,” Valentine wrote, later adding, “A profession confident in its values should also be confident in its capacity for open inquiry.”

Valentine said the college sent an email to members last week notifying them of the retraction.

“The reason given for the removal was not research fraud, plagiarism, ethical misconduct, or factual error. Rather, the NZCCP Council determined that retaining the article was inconsistent with the values of the College and could perpetuate harm to Māori,” an indigenous tribe in New Zealand, Valentine wrote.

The article was titled “He Wero Ano: Don’t Just Tell Me, Show Me How Science and Psychology Are Racist in New Zealand”

It no longer appears on the journal website.

But The College Fix tells us that it was published in 2025.

Author Arna Mitchell critiqued what she described as “broad,” unsubstantiated claims of systemic racism in “psychology across all levels of the discipline.”

This included the notion that “science itself is a social construct of white Europeans” and “white power.”

It was bound to raise a fuss in this country because it challenges efforts to include Māori “ways of knowing” into psychology training.

Mitchell, a Māori woman, disagreed that tribal “ways of knowing should be given equal weight to scientific ways of knowing in the training and practice of psychologists in New Zealand.”

According to The College Fix, the article received pushback soon after being published.

In December, four scholars wrote a response, a copy of which appears at Research Gate, arguing that Mitchell’s definitions of “psychology” and “science” were too “narrow.”

“Her argument was based on the view that Kaupapa Maori psychology consists merely of tales, stories, and spiritual or belief-based interventions that have yet to be justified as ‘science,’” they wrote.

Valentine said critiques are a normal part of academic discourse, but the retraction in this case was unprecedented.

“Removal of an article is typically because of scientific misconduct or similar issues … Instead, the rationale is that the article was inconsistent with organisational values and could cause harm,” she wrote.

Other scholars, including an American professor of philosophy, also criticised the journal’s editors, accusing them of allowing their political views to override scholarly debate.

The issue has been aired in this country by the Free Speech Union, which is calling on the NZCCP to explain its decision to retract the article.

According to the FSU, the paper was submitted in 2024, peer reviewed, and published in the Journal of the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists in 2025.

“A scholarly journal is meant to be a place where ideas are tested, not a channel for value signalling,” said Free Speech Union Stakeholder Relationships Manager Stephanie Martin.

“There is a long-standing difference between disagreeing with a published paper and removing it. Disagreement is answered with rebuttals, responses and debate. Removal tells every clinician reading the journal that some questions, and topics, are now closed to discussion.”

Martin said a profession committed to genuine partnership should be able to tolerate disagreement among Māori scholars, rather than treat a single position as a unanimous Māori view,

“When a published Māori author is removed from the record to protect Māori, it is fair to ask whose voices are being amplified and whose are being excluded.”

Martin noted that the implications reach well beyond a single article.

Many clinical psychologists are required to belong to a professional body such as the College in order to be approved for certain work, so the College’s judgements about acceptable views carry unusual weight in that members may not agree with them, but may not feel able to cease membership without losing their livelihoods.

Ironically, this demonstrates the very issues with regulatory overreach that the article itself sought to highlight, said Martin.

A profession confident in its values can withstand disagreement, she contended.

And which of this country’s news media have aired this story of political censorship by a professional organisation’s journal?

Please let us know if you can find a report, other than Michael Laws’ broadcast. The only reports we could find in response to our Google search – shown at the top of this article – are sourced from overseas.

The FSU press statement presumably was removed by one hit of the delete button.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.