David Lillis: Employment in University Academic Roles by Gender and Ethnicity: 2016 - 2025

Preamble and Disclaimer 

I offer this report as a contribution to ongoing debates on the future of our universities. In fact I undertook the study that led to this report, both out of curiosity and from a desire to provide information to the general public and to officials and policy-makers. I confirm that I was not funded by any external organization and that the work described here is exclusively my own.

David Farrar: Auckland Uni gets it right

The Auckland University Freedom of Expression Statement looks very good. It is clear with few weasel words. Key extracts:

The University actively fosters and supports lawful and constructive debate by its staff and students on any topic, including with the participation of external speakers invited by a staff member, or a recognised student association or student club.

David Farrar: Auckland Uni backs down

The Herald reports:

The University of Auckland’s controversial Treaty of Waitangi and te ao Māori courses are unlikely to remain compulsory after negative feedback from staff and students, and criticism from politicians.

Professor Jerry Coyne: University of Auckland set to make mandatory “indigeneity” courses optional.....

University of Auckland set to make mandatory “indigeneity” courses optional, as students considered them a waste of time and money

As I reported in September of last year, every entering student at New Zealand’s Auckland University was required to take an “indigeneity” course—and that includes prospective science majors. As I noted:

Graham Adams: Compulsory Treaty courses tip of the iceberg

Last week, David Seymour enthusiastically welcomed the recommendation by Auckland University’s Senate to make the compulsory first-year courses on the Treaty and te ao Māori voluntary after Act had publicly campaigned on the issue.

He described the Senate’s “two to one” vote in favour of voluntary enrolment as a “massive victory for people… to make up their own mind”.

Mike's Minute: Some more woke-enforced nonsense reversed

In a move you could have seen coming from the moment it was first announced, or if you couldn’t see it coming you hoped it would come, Auckland University has decided its Waipapa Taumata Rau course will now be optional instead of compulsory.

For a generation who have been appallingly let down over the Covid period by Government and education decisions, the Auckland University desire to force you into Māori courses seemed not just ill advised, but cruel.

Graham Adams: Auckland Uni students react to Treaty ‘indoctrination’

This year, the University of Auckland launched mandatory courses focused on a particular view of New Zealand history, Te Tiriti, and indigenous “knowledge systems”— which is to say mātauranga Māori — for all first-year students.

It doesn’t 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 can see no value in the topic, and object to having to pay for it. Domestic students are obliged to pay fees of more than $1300 for the single paper but international students are being stung for up to $5730.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: To National & ACT supporters attacking Auckland University.....

To National & ACT supporters attacking Auckland University. You voted for the changes there, which you now label "woke". You're lucky to have the place.

What's with Basset, Brash & Hide, The Platform, and my mate, Muriel Newman's NZ Centre for Political Research launching nuke attacks on Auckland University? In a particularly unpleasant example, those outlets featured an article saying "Auckland University has a Death Wish: It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the University of Auckland is suicidal". Many thanks for describing me in that way. Much appreciated.

Graham Adams: Auckland University has a death wish

Sometimes it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the University of Auckland is suicidal. Last year it slipped out of the world’s top 150 universities rankings and this year began a compulsory course on the Treaty and Indigenous “knowledge systems” for all first-year students in every faculty.

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.

Professor Jerry Coyne: We must decolonize the universities and undo the damage of the “colonial project”

Auckland Uni Law School teacher: we must decolonize the universities and undo the damage of the “colonial project”

It’s not so surprising that Auckland University harbors a Māori activist like Eru Kapa-Kingi; what is surprising is that Auckland University has publicized his words and activities, amd they seem proud of them! For Kapa-Kingi’s goal is apparently to decolonize not just Auckland University (once the best university in New Zealand, now a hotpot of identity politics), but all universities in the country. And he sees academia more as a place to enact activism than to seek the truth.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Legal letter threatening Auckland University....

Law firm partner who wrote legal letter threatening Auckland University with defamation on behalf of Foodstuffs is also a lecturer .. at Auckland University

Amusingly, when my (now retired) colleague, Tim Hazeldine, wrote at article about the Foodstuffs - Countdown duopoly, Auckland University got threatened with defamation. The letter from Chapman Tripp somehow found its way onto the government's own Commerce Commission Website - you can read it at the end of this link:

Dr Michael John Schimdt: Institutions of Apartheid

The University of Auckland in New Zealand was founded in 1883 as Auckland University College, initially serving as a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. Its humble beginnings were in a disused courthouse and jail, where it started with 95 students and 4 teaching staff. Regretfully amongst these early educators, there was not a historian(1). Even today Auckland University does not have a “History Department” though it does have ‘study options’ for history(2) and the current (2023) situation of ‘segregated study areas’(3) provides ample opportunity for a history lesson, a whole thesis. We don’t have to go back too far in New Zealand history.

Lushington D. Brady: Word to the Wise, Auckland Uni

We Had a Near-Identical Case in Australia

Word to the wise, University of Auckland: quit while you’re ahead.

Here in Australia we’ve already seen the debate over racially segregated spaces at universities played out, and it did not work out well for the segregators. And that was without even a firebrand senior government member on the case.

Cam Slater: Imagine If the Sign Said ‘Colored Only’

There are some folk who haven’t realised that Kiwis rejected racism, separatism, and segregation at the last election. The parties which promoted those policies, Labour, Green and Maori, got bundled out of office. Now a storm has erupted over a sign at Auckland University.

Act got into the debate, as has Winston Peters: