Should we be worried?
NZ universities’ descend into echo chambers for “correct and approved opinions”
The Free Speech Union (FSU) of New Zealand was to kick off a series of university union meetings at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) on 26 April 2022. In the first of this nationwide lecture series, FSU member Daphna Whitmore was scheduled to speak about her experience with Speak Up for Women, an advocacy group whose events in previous years had been canceled by several councils around New Zealand. In 2021, Speak Up for Women won against the Palmerston North City Council who had barred the group from holding an event on council premises.
The start of the lecture series at AUT had been arranged without difficulties months ago, but only when the union advertised the event, the trans lobby became aware of it and started their cancel campaign.
FSU wrote in their latest newsletter, “AUT staff, like Lexie Matheson (a transgender lecturer), became aware of the event and have been lobbying the university to not allow us to hold the event. Part of the reason we became a trade union was so that we could rely on our 'union access' rights to hold meetings on employer premises if activists tried to block us. (You can hear us discuss the issue on our latest podcast).“
The following images are part of the campaign to get the FSU event at AUT cancelled.
When the Free Speech Union announced their union meetings series at universities, they “knew [they] were picking a fight - the worst anti-speech sentiments are found in our universities. That's why we need to take the fight to them, where good ideas and can be bad ones and debate can reveal a path forward.”
The Rainbow NZ Charitable Trust posted on Facebook about AUT’s decision to de-platform the Free Speech Union:
The two images provide a handy list of all the “arguments” the trans lobby trot out time and time again (our comments in brackets):
you deny our right to exist (how exactly?)
you deny our rights and dignity and humanity (how exactly?)
debate should be reserved for things other than… (what we don’t want to debate)
…should never be a topic for discussion (as determined by us)
hate speech and bigotry (is anything we don’t want to hear)
TERFS should not be platformed (you’re hateful and bigoted, but we’re allowed to throw slurs)
gender-critical types spout anti-trans propaganda (anything we don’t want to hear is propaganda)
we live in a white supremacist state (to which we don’t belong)
you don’t understand what you’re doing (but we do)
vulnerable people (as determined by us)
what you’re saying is not valid (we determine validity)
hate speech masquerading as free speech (we define what’s what)
our rainbow communities (we define who is a member)
And so on. It’s all too familiar.
Quite lovely is Inclusion Manager-Rainbow, Jessie Lewthwaite’s phrase, “our resources” - as if AUT wasn’t a publicly funded place of learning.
The Free Speech Union believes, “if AUT gets away with stopping us holding a union meeting, universities across the country will block us from promoting the value of free speech.
We have insisted that AUT staff cannot be stopped from meeting with union representatives in their workplace, so we will defy their attempt to cancel this event and represent our membership, as is our right under the Employment Relations Act 2000. All AUT staff are invited to this union meeting, though at the moment we can't let in any of our other members or supporters.”
More info on FSU’s website.
Of particular interest might be Dane Giraud’s opinion piece on Paul Hunt.
Information on NZ “hate speech” legislation from Prue Hyman here.
A pertinent opinion piece: Jordan Peterson: Why I am no longer a tenured professor at the University of Toronto.