The complainant sent a 3100-word missive to the Vice-Chancellor in a belated response to five columns the professor had co-written three years ago that discussed university funding, decolonisation and mātauranga Māori.
The university has summarised the essence of the complaint as asking whether criticisms of “Māori bodies, colonisation, mātauranga Māori and about Māori studies, te reo Māori, and Māori presence at universities reflect the values of Massey University”.
It would seem the complainant — who prefers not to be named — thinks that any such criticism is an outrage, even when made in a personal capacity.
In fact, Schwerdtfeger and his academic co-authors explicitly stated in the columns: “The opinions expressed here are those of the writers, and not of the universities with which they are or were formerly affiliated.” In her letter, the complainant acknowledged the disclaimer but dismissed it.
The university has instigated a formal investigation. Of course, if it functioned properly as a traditional institute of higher learning, its response to the complaint could have been simple and immediate: “We are a university! All ideas are contestable and open to criticism in our search for truth. Those are the values we hold dear and will defend to the last.”
The complaint should have been instantly rejected.
However, Massey has opened itself up to grievances of this nature by committing the university to being a “Tiriti-led” institution. This commitment — which includes “valuing, advancing and protecting mātauranga Māori as a distinct and important knowledge system” — is one avenue the complainant is using to test Massey’s “values”.
Ironically, the university’s Academic Freedom Policy has been so watered down that the complainant has been able to appeal to that too in her objections. She questioned whether the columns are “consistent with… [the policy’s] commitments to respectful dialogue, mana-enhancing civility, equal access to speech, and awareness of speech that may silence, stigmatise, victimise or marginalise people on grounds of ethnicity, cultural difference, race or national origin”.
Her letter was couched in personal terms:
“I am Māori, and my eldest [daughter] is in her final year of school and has Massey on her shortlist for a degree in Māori Studies. We were at the Manawatū open day earlier this year and she came home set on it... [but] I have since read a series of articles co-authored by Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger of the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study, published on the Bassett, Brash and Hide website between June and December 2023, each carrying his Massey title. Having read them, I no longer feel confident about my daughter enrolling at Massey.”
Again, an institution dedicated to higher learning should have had no hesitation in rejecting the complaint. Its response should have been simple: “If your daughter is unable to cope with hearing ideas or criticisms she doesn’t agree with, she is clearly not ready for university.”
Given the daughter wanted to enrol in Māori Studies, it is very unlikely, of course, that she would have encountered Professor Schwerdtfeger unless she suddenly discovered a new passion for the hard sciences he specialises in, namely high-level theoretical chemistry and physics.
The mother said her daughter wanted “to learn maramataka, rongoā, whakapapa and te reo properly, and she wants to do it at a university that thinks it is worth learning”.
Maramataka is the traditional lunar calendar used to track time, energy levels, and the best days for fishing, planting, and harvesting.
Rongoā focuses on herbal remedies using native plants alongside massage and physical alignment intended to release physical blockages and shift spiritual energy.
Spiritual healing is purportedly achieved via karakia and other incantations, prayers, and spiritual connections that maintain the mauri (life force) and wairua (spirit) during the healing process.
Herbal medicines, calculations of wairua and mauri, and traditional lunar calendars are worthy of study at a university as anthropological phenomena but not as subjects to be taught uncritically — any more than students should expect biblical accounts of creation to be presented in lectures as just another “knowledge system” deserving the same status as science.
The complainant’s jeremiad is also directed at the criticisms Schwerdtfeger and his co-authors made about the promotion of te reo, and their questioning “whether public money should be spent promoting a language spoken fluently by only three per cent of New Zealanders, one that is not used outside this country and that cannot easily be adapted to the sciences...”
Instead of answering those criticisms directly, the complainant then resorted to a cry-bully’s tactics:
“Te reo Māori is an official language of this country. It reached three per cent because of what the state did to it. To see that figure used as an argument against its revival, by a professor at a university that has a Māori name [Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa] in its own title, is difficult to reconcile with anything Massey says about itself in its recruitment material.”
Massey should rightly offer te reo as an academic subject — indeed it has been taught at New Zealand universities since 1929 — but it is not a university’s job to try to revitalise it to atone for the state’s alleged role in its demise. No one expects a university to promote sign language, for instance, even though that is an official language too.
The complainant also objected to one of the columns stating that colonisation had “brought benefits to indigenous people and that in New Zealand it ended inter-tribal wars....”
That colonisation brought benefits to Māori is indisputable — which they were quick to recognise at the time as they clamoured to learn to read and write, converted to Christianity and invited Pakeha to settle near them to share in the prosperity and the advanced technology they brought from the outside world.
Nevertheless, the complainant seemed to think the benefits of colonisation could be dismissed out of hand given that the writers failed to mention “the New Zealand Wars, the confiscations, the Native Land Court and the Tohunga Suppression Act...”
It would appear she has little knowledge of the petitions presented to Parliament in the 19th Century by Māori leaders for their children to be taught only in English at school or the fact the Tohunga Suppression Act was driven by prominent Māori politicians including Sir James Carroll, and all four MPs holding Māori electorates — including Apirana Ngata — voted in favour of the bill.
Her objections are, in fact, a compendium of the received opinions we have come to expect from apologists for Māori nationalism — and the predictable outrage when anyone dares to publicly reject them.
It should be deeply embarrassing for Massey to be obliged to convene a panel to consider whether the articles written by three senior academics “reflect its values”.
It would seem the complainant — who prefers not to be named — thinks that any such criticism is an outrage, even when made in a personal capacity.
In fact, Schwerdtfeger and his academic co-authors explicitly stated in the columns: “The opinions expressed here are those of the writers, and not of the universities with which they are or were formerly affiliated.” In her letter, the complainant acknowledged the disclaimer but dismissed it.
The university has instigated a formal investigation. Of course, if it functioned properly as a traditional institute of higher learning, its response to the complaint could have been simple and immediate: “We are a university! All ideas are contestable and open to criticism in our search for truth. Those are the values we hold dear and will defend to the last.”
The complaint should have been instantly rejected.
However, Massey has opened itself up to grievances of this nature by committing the university to being a “Tiriti-led” institution. This commitment — which includes “valuing, advancing and protecting mātauranga Māori as a distinct and important knowledge system” — is one avenue the complainant is using to test Massey’s “values”.
Ironically, the university’s Academic Freedom Policy has been so watered down that the complainant has been able to appeal to that too in her objections. She questioned whether the columns are “consistent with… [the policy’s] commitments to respectful dialogue, mana-enhancing civility, equal access to speech, and awareness of speech that may silence, stigmatise, victimise or marginalise people on grounds of ethnicity, cultural difference, race or national origin”.
Her letter was couched in personal terms:
“I am Māori, and my eldest [daughter] is in her final year of school and has Massey on her shortlist for a degree in Māori Studies. We were at the Manawatū open day earlier this year and she came home set on it... [but] I have since read a series of articles co-authored by Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger of the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study, published on the Bassett, Brash and Hide website between June and December 2023, each carrying his Massey title. Having read them, I no longer feel confident about my daughter enrolling at Massey.”
Again, an institution dedicated to higher learning should have had no hesitation in rejecting the complaint. Its response should have been simple: “If your daughter is unable to cope with hearing ideas or criticisms she doesn’t agree with, she is clearly not ready for university.”
Given the daughter wanted to enrol in Māori Studies, it is very unlikely, of course, that she would have encountered Professor Schwerdtfeger unless she suddenly discovered a new passion for the hard sciences he specialises in, namely high-level theoretical chemistry and physics.
The mother said her daughter wanted “to learn maramataka, rongoā, whakapapa and te reo properly, and she wants to do it at a university that thinks it is worth learning”.
Maramataka is the traditional lunar calendar used to track time, energy levels, and the best days for fishing, planting, and harvesting.
Rongoā focuses on herbal remedies using native plants alongside massage and physical alignment intended to release physical blockages and shift spiritual energy.
Spiritual healing is purportedly achieved via karakia and other incantations, prayers, and spiritual connections that maintain the mauri (life force) and wairua (spirit) during the healing process.
Herbal medicines, calculations of wairua and mauri, and traditional lunar calendars are worthy of study at a university as anthropological phenomena but not as subjects to be taught uncritically — any more than students should expect biblical accounts of creation to be presented in lectures as just another “knowledge system” deserving the same status as science.
The complainant’s jeremiad is also directed at the criticisms Schwerdtfeger and his co-authors made about the promotion of te reo, and their questioning “whether public money should be spent promoting a language spoken fluently by only three per cent of New Zealanders, one that is not used outside this country and that cannot easily be adapted to the sciences...”
Instead of answering those criticisms directly, the complainant then resorted to a cry-bully’s tactics:
“Te reo Māori is an official language of this country. It reached three per cent because of what the state did to it. To see that figure used as an argument against its revival, by a professor at a university that has a Māori name [Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa] in its own title, is difficult to reconcile with anything Massey says about itself in its recruitment material.”
Massey should rightly offer te reo as an academic subject — indeed it has been taught at New Zealand universities since 1929 — but it is not a university’s job to try to revitalise it to atone for the state’s alleged role in its demise. No one expects a university to promote sign language, for instance, even though that is an official language too.
The complainant also objected to one of the columns stating that colonisation had “brought benefits to indigenous people and that in New Zealand it ended inter-tribal wars....”
That colonisation brought benefits to Māori is indisputable — which they were quick to recognise at the time as they clamoured to learn to read and write, converted to Christianity and invited Pakeha to settle near them to share in the prosperity and the advanced technology they brought from the outside world.
Nevertheless, the complainant seemed to think the benefits of colonisation could be dismissed out of hand given that the writers failed to mention “the New Zealand Wars, the confiscations, the Native Land Court and the Tohunga Suppression Act...”
It would appear she has little knowledge of the petitions presented to Parliament in the 19th Century by Māori leaders for their children to be taught only in English at school or the fact the Tohunga Suppression Act was driven by prominent Māori politicians including Sir James Carroll, and all four MPs holding Māori electorates — including Apirana Ngata — voted in favour of the bill.
Her objections are, in fact, a compendium of the received opinions we have come to expect from apologists for Māori nationalism — and the predictable outrage when anyone dares to publicly reject them.
It should be deeply embarrassing for Massey to be obliged to convene a panel to consider whether the articles written by three senior academics “reflect its values”.
Schwerdtfeger — an academic heavyweight with an international reputation — will have to prepare a defence.
He’s up for the fight. As he told Sean Plunket on The Platform: “When I see the kind of pseudo-science coming out in New Zealand at the moment under the umbrella of mātauranga Māori… as a scientist, I have to reject that and write about it.”
It is not the first time he has locked horns with Massey’s management over academic freedom and free speech. And he publicly defended the seven Auckland University professors who wrote a letter to the Listener in 2021 that rejected a purported equivalence between mātauranga Māori and science.
Plunket asked Schwerdtfeger why he continues to work at Massey. After all, he is highly regarded internationally and would undoubtedly not suffer from lack of opportunities to teach at more prestigious universities.
He replied: “Basically, I’m a little bit of a voice for all the academics who don’t dare to speak out.”
And, he added, he is “really positive about the new leadership” — and confident that the new Vice-Chancellor, appointed in February, “will do the right thing”.
Plunket: “Should the complaint have got this far?”
Schwerdtfeger: “Absolutely not — because some of the points are ridiculous.”
A ruling is expected by the end of the month.
He’s up for the fight. As he told Sean Plunket on The Platform: “When I see the kind of pseudo-science coming out in New Zealand at the moment under the umbrella of mātauranga Māori… as a scientist, I have to reject that and write about it.”
It is not the first time he has locked horns with Massey’s management over academic freedom and free speech. And he publicly defended the seven Auckland University professors who wrote a letter to the Listener in 2021 that rejected a purported equivalence between mātauranga Māori and science.
Plunket asked Schwerdtfeger why he continues to work at Massey. After all, he is highly regarded internationally and would undoubtedly not suffer from lack of opportunities to teach at more prestigious universities.
He replied: “Basically, I’m a little bit of a voice for all the academics who don’t dare to speak out.”
And, he added, he is “really positive about the new leadership” — and confident that the new Vice-Chancellor, appointed in February, “will do the right thing”.
Plunket: “Should the complaint have got this far?”
Schwerdtfeger: “Absolutely not — because some of the points are ridiculous.”
A ruling is expected by the end of the month.
Graham Adams is an Auckland-based freelance editor, journalist and columnist. This article was sourced HERE
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