Coral reefs can be messy, and so can court cases. And so it is with the case of Peter Ridd, sacked by James Cook University because he exercised his intellectual freedom. The only thing that is neatly settled from this case is apparently ‘the science’, never mind that this is only because anyone who publicly disagrees with it is censored or sacked. In the case of Peter Ridd, even after he managed to raise over A$1.4 million to appeal his sacking by James Cook University all the way to the High Court of Australia, he lost.
In a unanimous decision handed down this morning, the Court concluded that Dr Ridd’s right to intellectual freedom is constrained by the procedural requirements of James Cook University’s Code of Conduct. The High Court found his freedom of speech is limited only to his area of expertise. Those freedoms do not extend to issues about how the University is run, or whether the pronouncements made by its research institutions are trustworthy.
These matters are apparently internal; the University’s academics are obliged to follow procedure over these and, in particular, must be mindful when disciplinary matters are deemed confidential.
This sends a very strong message to all politically astute academics: if they are likely to make findings that do not accord with the consensus, these findings should be hidden within phrases that are unintelligible gobbledygook. In other words, their findings should be communicated in language that is meaningless, or is made unintelligible by the excessive use of technical jargon. They should certainly not translate their findings into plain English, or, worse, air them on national television, because that way the average Australian would have some understanding of what they are actually funding with their hard-earned taxes.
The climate science literature is replete with hidden meaning and technical jargon. The extent of the gobbledygook is such that the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently concluded that humans are the main cause of global warming and the role of the sun is inconsequential, never mind that there is an extensive prestigious scientific literature that arguably comes to the opposite conclusion – which is that much of the global warming we have been experiencing can be explained in terms of solar variability. This extensive literature was recently reviewed by Ronan Connolly, Willie Soon and 20 of their colleagues from 14 countries and published in the international journal Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (Volume 21). However, it appears that tenured academics are not allowed to argue, at least not publicly.
There was a sense of irony this morning that made me smile. As I waited for the High Court judgement, I looked through a paper by Peter Ridd’s former colleagues – Emma Ryan, Scott Smithers and others – entitled ‘Chronostratigraphy of Bramston Reef reveals a long-term record of fringing reef growth under muddy conditions in the central Great Barrier Reef’ published in the very respectable journal Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Palaeoecology (Volume 441).
It would be difficult for the non-specialist to decipher this jargon-filled technical analysis that essentially supports what Peter Ridd has been saying for some years – and which earned him his first censure by the University, but, in short, it says there is still healthy coral reef in Bowen Harbour. It’s cold comfort, by the way, for the High Court to find in passing that the 2016 censure was unlawful, especially when it led directly to the 2018 censure, which, in turn, resulted in Peter’s employment being terminated. Anyway, I’m told Scott Smithers is a very competent scientist and an all-round good guy. He never replies to my emails. Perhaps this is because I could translate his gobbledygook into plain English. His potentially subversive publications would then be understood by the intelligent layperson for what they are – which is that they back up what Peter Ridd is saying in plain English and provide a very detailed explanation of how many inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Reef have been in decline for more than 1,000 years because of falling (yes, falling) sea levels.
The deceleration of reef growth occurred long before European settlement of the Queensland coast and was driven by natural constraints, probably associated with limited accommodation space due to late-Holocene sea-level fall. Our results demonstrate that mainland-attached reef initiation and accretion can occur in muddy inshore environments over long timeframes (centuries to millennia).
Because academics are not allowed to speak freely about controversial subjects most people have no understanding of the cyclical nature of sea levels. The general public are under the misconception that the most important global trend is one of sea-level rise. There are cycles within cycles and the most significant cycle has been one of sea-level fall, by some 1.5 metres over the last 2,000 or so years, notwithstanding that there has been sea-level rise of some 40 centimetres since the industrial revolution, which coincides with the end of the Little Ice Age (circa AD 1303 to AD 1835).
To put all of this in some context, along the Great Barrier Reef there is a large and variable daily tidal range. For example, at Hay Point the tide varies by as much as 7.14 metres; at Mackay by 6.58 metres; and at Gladstone by 4.83 metres. Sea levels have changed even more dramatically over geological time frames. For example, just 19,500 years ago, during the depths of the last major ice age, sea levels were 120 metres lower (yes, lower) than they are today. And the Great Barrier Reef did not exist. This very long record shows changes in temperature precede their parallel changes in carbon dioxide by 800 to 2000 years. This vital point establishes that carbon dioxide cannot be the primary forcing agent for temperature change at the glacial-interglacial scale, but this reality is mostly hidden by the modern astute geologist and ice-core expert who arguably cares more for his career than the truth. If this were not the case, they would be marching on Glasgow.
The modern Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system to have ever existed on planet Earth, according to Peter J. Davies writing in the Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs. It is but a thin veneer growing on top of at least five previous extensive reef systems, each destroyed by dramatic falls in sea level in the past. The modern reef has grown up on top of extinct reefs, the last of which existed 120,000 years ago. In some places the depth of the coral growth since the last ice age, which had begun by 100,000 years ago, is 28 metres – layer upon layer. This growth is now constrained by sea level.
Many of the nearly 3,000 reefs that make up the modern Great Barrier Reef have a crest that is flat-topped because the most recent 1.5 metre drop in sea level has sliced this much off their tops. So, the crests of these reefs are dead coral that is thousands of years old, sometimes capped with coralline algae. These reef crests were dead long before European settlement. Yet it is surveys that include exactly this reef habitat, taken from the window of a plane by Peter Ridd’s nemesis Terry Hughes flying at an altitude of 150 metres, which have made media headlines around the world, and which suggest that the Great Barrier Reef is more than half dead.
Worse, they were used in a recent Australian Academy of Sciences report (March 2021) to claim the imminent demise of the Great Barrier Reef due to carbon dioxide emissions and thus the need for a commitment to net zero greenhouse gas emissions in Glasgow. It is all nonsense, and politics. But beware the academic who explains as much in plain English, especially following this morning’s ruling by the High Court of Australia.
On 2 May 2018, Peter Ridd was sacked by James Cook University for serious misconduct. It all started when he called-out Terry Hughes, whom he believed was falsely claiming that the inshore coral reefs at Bowen, specifically Bramston Reef, were dead because of climate change and the deteriorating water quality. It is the case that Professor Hughes was showing photographs of the mud flat as though it had replaced the coral reef that still exists to the seaward side.
Professor Ridd had been complaining quietly for years. He had already published peer-reviewed papers explaining in detail some of the serious issues with the official science. It was nevertheless a tough decision to go public, which he made in full knowledge that there could be consequences. At the same time there was a feeling of optimism; eventually, the truth would win out and the University would acknowledge the importance of implementing some form of quality assurance over the various pronouncements made by one or two high-profile academics. These academics, whom he believed were speaking beyond their area of expertise and hammering the theme of the reef being dead in order to progress their own personal political agenda and, at the same time, their careers.
Former Chairman of the Institute of Public Affairs, Janet Albrechtsen, wrote in The Australian on 25 July 2020:
Remember that Ridd wasn’t querying the interpretation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He was raising questions, in one particular area of his expertise, about the quality of climate change science. One of the fundamental challenges of our generation is to get the science right so we can settle on the right climate change policies. JCU told Ridd to keep quiet, then it sacked him.
Peter Ridd did win the first round in the Federal Circuit Court back in April 2019. Judge Salvatore Vasta found in his favour and order that the 17 findings made by the University, the two speech directions, the five confidentiality directions, the no satire direction and the censure and the final censure given by the University and the termination of employment of Professor Ridd by the University were all unlawful.
Then the University appealed, and the Federal Court of Australia overturned the decision of the Federal Circuit Court. That decision, according to Dr Albrechtsen, has sent intellectual inquiry down the gurgler in the 21st century at an institution fundamental to Western civilisation:
Is that to be the legacy of JCU’s vice-chancellor Sandra Harding? And what oversight has JCU’s governing council provided to this reputational damage, not to mention the waste of taxpayer dollars, in pursuing a distinguished scientist who was admired by his students?
Following this decision, no academic can assume that an Australian university will allow the kind of robust debate held at Oxford University in 1860 between the bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, and Thomas Henry Huxley, a biologist and proponent of Darwin’s theory of evolution.
The Historical Journal records how this legendary encounter unfolded: ‘The Bishop rose, and in a light scoffing tone, florid and fluent he assured us there was nothing in the idea of evolution: rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons have always been. Then, turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey? On this Mr Huxley slowly and deliberately arose. A slight tall figure stern and pale, very quiet and very grave, he stood before us, and spoke those tremendous words … He was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth.
Not for nothing, Ridd’s lawyers submitted this example of intellectual freedom during the first trial. In sacking Ridd, and to win in court, JCU had to argue against the means that seeks the truth – intellectual freedom.
In deciding whether to grant special leave for the appeal, the High Court considered whether the case involved ‘a question of law that is of public importance’. It was the first time the High Court had been called upon to consider the meaning of ‘academic and intellectual freedom’, a term that is used in enterprise agreements covering staff at almost all Australian universities.
We now have a judgement. For the High Court, it seems that intellectual freedom is like a delicate flower that does not survive being plucked. It can be contemplated from afar but cannot be held or given as a gift. Intellectual freedom survives in academia only if limited to gobbledygook that alludes to the truth in such a way that no member of the pubic could understand how deeply that truth contradicts the official scientific consensus. Perhaps I already knew that.
Some argue there are other legal avenues – not through the courts – that could, perhaps, have been pursued and may have achieved a different outcome, but which may or may not have provided some vindication. But as for the courts: if you have to raise A$1.4 million and put in a further A$300,000 of your own money, as Peter Ridd has done, just to run one argument all the way to the High Court, how much would you need to fight on the substance of each issue? For sure the lawyers did well out of this case.
The alternative strategy might have been to try and get the matter raised under the Queensland whistle-blower legislation. Peter Ridd would at least have been, theoretically, protected while an investigation was conducted. The focus would have been on science rather than a narrow construction of employment law and the procedures laid out in the University’s Code of Conduct. But given the determination of James Cook University to silence its critics, and the need for this to have included testimony from colleagues desperate to avoid controversy – lest they are admonished by their family and communities for failing to be respectable, thereby jeopardising their own careers – it is unclear this would have been any more fruitful.
And so to this day there has never been any consideration given by the courts or any other independent body to the actual state of the corals in Bowen Harbour, including at Bramston Reef, even though this was the reason for the first censure that the High Court has ruled should not have been issued in the first place. Yes, the ruling this morning clearly states, in agreement with Judge Vasta, that Professor Ridd’s initial comments about his colleague Terry Hughes and the state of the corals in Bowen Harbour were reasonable and that the censure should not have been issued. Yet that is where all the other allegations subsequently came from as Peter Ridd tried to defend himself in the public domain.
There is more than one coral reef in Bowen Harbour. I like to refer to Bramston reef as the one the other side of the mudflat, it is the muddiest. There is a much prettier reef the other side of the channel and in the northeast facing bay of Stone Island at the entrance to Bowen Harbour, a reef that I have named Beige Reef. I produced a short documentary film about the extent of the scientific misrepresentation of these corals, to watch it scroll down at this link. The film, Beige Reef, was funded by the B.Macfie Family Foundation through the Institute of Public Affairs. In the film, I let people see for themselves rather than engage in gobbledygook. But sadly that’s a freedom no longer available to any serving academic at an Australian University.
Following today’s decision, Peter Ridd has accepted an invitation to join the Institute of Public Affairs as a Research Fellow, without salary, to lead a newly established project for ‘Real Science’. The Project’s aims are to improve science quality assurance and to support academics speaking out for integrity in science and research. You can support this project by way of a tax deductable donation to the IPA. It is the case that long ago scientific inquiry was mostly privately funded, now is your opportunity to be a part of this new initiative for open and honest inquiry.
Peter released the following statement today, immediately following the decision by the High Court:
It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that we have lost the appeal in the High Court. We lost, in my opinion, because JCU’s work contract, under which I was employed, effectively kills academic freedom of speech – and the contract is effectively the law.
So, JCU actions were technically legal. But it was, in my opinion, never right, proper, decent, moral or in line with public expectations of how a university should behave.
I often ask myself, if I knew what was going to happen, would I have handled that fateful interview with Alan Jones and Peta Credlin in 2017 differently. Would I still say that, due to systemic quality assurance problems, work from a couple of Great Barrier Reef science institutions was “untrustworthy”?
It has cost me my job, my career, over $300K in legal fees, and more than a few grey hairs.
All I can say is that I hope I would do it again – because overall it was worth the battle, and having the battle is, in this case, more important than the result.
This is just a small battle in a much bigger war. It was a battle which we had to have and, in retrospect, lose. JCU’s and almost every other university in Australia and the western world are behaving badly. We have shown how badly.
Decent people and governments can see the immense problem we have. The universities are not our friends. Only when the problem is recognised will public pressure force a solution.
The failure of our legal action, and JCU’s determination to effectively destroy academic freedom of speech, demonstrates that further legislation is required to force universities to behave properly – especially if they are to receive any public funding. The Commonwealth government introduced excellent legislation in parliament early this year, partly in response to our legal case, to bolster academic freedom of speech. It is an excellent step in the right direction. If my case had been fought under this legislation, I would have had a better chance of winning. But it would still have been far from certain. There would still have been a clash between the new legislation and the work agreement.
There needs to be major punishment against universities for infringement of academic freedom of speech, such as fines or losing their accreditation. There needs to be active policing and investigations of the universities to make sure they comply and do not threaten academics with expensive legal action to stop the university’s behaviour becoming public. Universities must be told that they cannot spy on academic’s email communications (this should only be done by the police) or use secrecy directives to silence and intimidate staff. And all this protection for academics MUST be written into the work contracts to put the matter beyond legal doubt.
I am very mindful that I asked for, and received, donations of about $1,500,000 (in two GoFundMe campaigns of around $750k#) for the legal battle – from over 10,000 people. And I lost. Some of those donations were from people who have very slender financial resources. All I can say is that it weighs heavily on my conscience, but I hope they agree that it was still worth the battle.
A last thank you
I would like to express, one last time, my thanks to Stuart Wood AM QC, Ben Jellis, Ben Kidston, Colette Mintz, Mitchell Downes, Amelia Hasson and the rest of the team. They were fabulous. They did everything that was possible.
Thanks also to John Roskam, Gideon Rozner, Evan Mulholland, Morgan Begg and the Institute of Public Affairs. They backed me when things got tough. They are one of the few institutions in the country that will fight on issues of freedom of speech. I’d like to make a special mention of the IPA’s Jennifer Marohasy. She has been a great support over many years and played a crucial role in the critical early days of this fight.
Thanks to the National Tertiary Education Union. They supported the cause in court, even though my views on the Reef may well be opposed to the views of many of their members.
There are many politicians who have gone into bat on my behalf such as Matt Canavan, George Christensen, Pauline Hanson, Bob Katter, Gerard Rennick, Malcolm Roberts, Dan Tehan, and Alan Tudge (in alphabetical order). They obviously could not interfere with the legal proceedings, but were instrumental in bringing in the new academic freedom legislation.
There are many journalists and bloggers who helped spread the word, but I would particularly like to thanks Graham Lloyd from The Australian, Jo Nova, and Anthony Watts (WUWT).There are also many other people, far too many to list, that I am thankful to. They will know who they are.
And finally, thanks to my family, and especially Cheryl.
Your donation to Peter Ridd’s ‘Project for Real Science’ will contribute to the production of more short documentary films. Thank you for reading this far, and don’t forget:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
If public policy is to be based on evidence, as opposed to myth, then there is a need for all of us to fearlessly seek out the truth. Beyond this there is a need for expertise to be recognised, and valued, and the claims of activists to be always tested against the evidence. If we turn the other way, and choose to ignore these facts, on the basis they offend or are unkind to those we hold in high esteem, we cannot honestly consider ourselves, or our community, to be very civilised or educated. And finally, I have explained the four myths behind Peter Ridd’s sacking in a short report, that can be downloaded here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I’m almost speechless with disgust over the High Court’s protection of research miscoduct and abandonment of rules of evidence that are shared by academia and the legal system.
Peter Ridd is not the only ‘martyr.’…Religion still underpins Academia, Science, Politics and Finance….
Copernicus to Climate Change –
Anthology of Denial.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) Promoting the Copernican Theory and thus, raising the ire of the Catholic Church. Tutored by monks and considered a religious vocation.
Enrolled for a medical degree at the University of Pisa in 1580.
Did not complete this degree – but instead studied mathematics with Ostilio Ricci, a mathematics teacher attached to the Tuscan court and the Florentine Accademia del Disegno.
Appointed lecturer in mathematics at Pisa in 1589.
Chair of mathematics at the University of Padua in 1592.
Invented an improved telescope which resulted in his making ‘astounding celestial discoveries.’ Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger) appearing in 1610.
This work lauded by Johannes Kepler, Imperial Mathematician at Prague.
1612 – Discourse on Floating Bodies.
1613 – Letters on Sunspots. (Expressing support for Copernican heliocentrism.
1614 – Letter to Castelli, expanded into Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina in 1615, defending the doctrine from theological objections.
March 1616 – Copernicus’s On the revolution of Heavenly Orbs was suspended (pending ‘correction’) by the Congregation of the index of Prohibited Books.
Called to an audience with Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, a leading theologian and member of the Roman Inquisition, who admonished him not to defend Copernican theory.
1623 – Published The Assayer, which deals with the nature of comets and argues they are sublunary phenomena. This book was referred to the Inquisition as being heretical, for maintaining that ‘The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics’ – and containing passages suggestive of atomism – a heretical doctrine. These charges were dismissed by the Inquisition.
Also in 1623 – Galileo’s supporter and friend Maffeo Barberini was elected Pope Urban V111. Galileo begins work on his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, (Copernican and Ptolemaic.) the Inquisition banned its sale and Galileo was ordered to Rome, for Trial.
1633 – Galileo convicted of ‘vehement suspicion of heresy’. A sentence of imprisonment was immediately commuted to perpetual house arrest.
1634 – Began work on his final book Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences – smuggled out of Italy and published in Holland by the Elzeviers in 1638.
Galileo died early in 1642, and due to his condemnation, his burial place was obscure, until re-interred in 1737.
!992 – Pope John Paul 11’s ‘rehabilitation’ of Galileo.
Acknowledgements;
Peter Machamer and David Marshall Miller and entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2021.
2021 – Pope Francis anoints COP 26 as a ‘Global Warmist’ – acknowledging the quasi-religious mantra of exponential Anthropogenic Global Warming and thus, denying the existence of observed Climate Cycles, that have a direct and demonstrable physical terrestrial footprint in regards to varying temperature and precipitation.
The Earth/Solar Orbital Calendar and the Solar-induced Orbital Dry Cycle Hierarchy completely invalidates the Gregorian Calendar – and effectively invalidates the theology of all religious denominations.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13XspUXBLBdHAD3yECFM3C0s2LZ23AfZO/view?usp=sharing
Universities are children of monasteries. The only thing that’s changed is the dogma. They’re now worshiping Gaia.
As for courts, they duck for the cover of agreements and contracts
The only winners were the lawyers- but then they always do win.
An excellent essay Jen. Keep up the good fight.
My prayer for Terry Hughes to defend his actions (in court) still stands, as he created the very first lie. I doubt this will happen, so he always be known as a liar who is weak, blinded by his own self interest.
So on and so forth. The pallid institutions that make up the reef coalition will continue to issue tendentious reports on the GBR marine health – the “love in” will continue well flushed with public funding. Heads up everyone the truth is with us. To Peter Ridd you fought the good fight and I’m proud to have contributed to your fund and would do so again.
Congratulations on a great article Jen. One of the first concepts I was taught in High School science is “the science is never settled – it is always open to conjecture”. JCU and seemingly all the disciples of global warming have forgotten this important lesson.
Former American President Eisenhower warned in his farewell speech. “Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Keep up the good work Dr. Ridd and Jen, the fight has only just begun and the truth will be the victor.
I haven’t read the HC decision fully … just ‘skimmed it’. It seems to reflect thoughts that I’d expressed fourteen months ago. See that extended comment of mine at:
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2020/07/university-appeal-upheld-peter-ridd-loses-we-all-lose/#comment-692649.
Peter – in my view – wasn’t disciplined/sacked for his views on the Great Barrier Reef … he was disciplined for ‘bagging out’ a fellow scientist and certain scientific institutions. Is it too much to suggest that he chose to personalise the issue, rather than sticking to debating the science?
I felt that – as the HCA said – he’d adopted an all or nothing approach. When suggestions were made of support for his going to the HCA, I thought he would be foolish to do so. Like throwing good money after bad.
I’d earlier thought that Peter had got lucky in having Judge Vasta, and my own thoughts concerning Vasta were that I’d not think I’d achieved much had he come out with a decision in my favour.
That was then … and I don’t believe that Vasta J has done anything to change my view since that time. Look him up…
There were obvious peculiarities in the case present by Peter. I believe I picked up on them in my comment last year (link above) and I believe that the HC has noted the same. I don’t wish him any ill-will … I think he should have had a mate tell him early on:
‘Pete, I support you opposing those dying-reef narratives, but look mate, you’ve made your point … yet your academic freedom doesn’t include bagging-out whats-his-name … don’t call him and the institutions dishonest … do the science mate … publish in the journals … that’s where science and academic freedom is… do it that way.
It is hard to understand why a serious academic would go on any program on Sky News or have any dealings with The Australian, given what we know about the malice, mendacity and criminality of News Corp.
Peter Ridd lost all respect among discerning observers of Australian affairs – including, it seems, High Court judges – when he did so.
My colleague Gideon Rozner writes:
Why did we lose?
My reading of the judgment is that the High Court is saying – as is so often the case – “we support freedom of speech, but…”
In essence, the High Court found that Peter did in fact have a right to publicly criticise the quality of JCU’s climate science – even if such criticism was ‘discourteous’ – and should not have been disciplined by JCU for doing so. But because Peter ‘went public’ with JCU’s allegations against him, he was still in breach of the university’s ‘confidentiality directions’ which in effect meant that several of the JCU’s findings of ‘misconduct’ were upheld.
This is the relevant part of the judgment, which I’ve edited for brevity:
The essential question is whether, in interpretation of clause 14 of the Enterprise Agreement [relating to intellectual freedom], the clause should be qualified (i) by a requirement to afford respect and courtesy to others in the expression of issues and ideas in one’s field of competence and (ii) by obligations of confidentiality in relation to JCU’s disciplinary processes.
The best interpretation of clause 14 is that intellectual freedom is not qualified by a requirement to afford respect and courtesy in the manner of its exercise. That interpretation aligns with the long-standing core meaning of intellectual freedom.
That conclusion does not affect the outcome of this appeal. The only conduct that falls within the intellectual freedom in clause 14 is the expression of opinion within an area of academic expertise and the criticism of JCU decisions and processes through applicable processes which include obligations of confidentiality. [Read here]
In other words, Peter lost his appeal this week not because of anything he said about climate change and the Great Barrier Reef, nor even ‘how he said it’, but because he publicly objected to the way in which James Cook University pursued him.
What the High Court’s decision means for free speech
Many people who have read the judgment who I’ve spoken to have mentioned the fact that, if you read the High Court’s judgment, there are some really decent passages in there about the importance of intellectual freedom and the mission of a university.
To be honest, that’s cold comfort to me. Anyone can – and plenty of people do – wax lyrical about free speech, but what matters is what we do to defend it. Justices Kiefel, Gageler, Keane, Gordon and Edelman had a chance to enshrine true intellectual freedom in Australian common law forever. They gave us, at best, a series of passing references to free speech riddled with caveats.
But I must say, Chris Merritt’s piece in The Australian today did offer a good counterpoint:
James Cook University has just learned a terrible lesson: it might have won its fight against Peter Ridd but its reputation will never be the same. The High Court has found unanimously that this regional institution was wrong when it twice censured Ridd, a world-class academic, for making honest and lawful statements on matters within his expertise.
Those findings are a mark of dishonour that will never be expunged.
Potential students and academics will be able to see that this organisation was wrong to censure Ridd in 2016 for what it said was the tone and manner of his honestly held views… Future generations will see that the university was wrong to… tell him his intellectual freedom did not extend to criticising ‘key stakeholders of the university’ in a manner that was not “respectful and courteous”. [Read here $]
So in the end, Ridd v James Cook University turned on what JCU alleged and what the High Court ultimately maintained were ‘confidentiality breaches’. Peter’s sacking was upheld by way of a kind of process crime, similar to where a person is railroaded by the justice system for what they say during an investigation, even though that investigation is itself predicated on an unsubstantiated allegation. In this case, the court held that Peter should not have been censured by JCU over his comments about climate change and the Great Barrier Reef, but they were within their rights to sack him for objecting in public to the way he was being treated.
Interestingly, the absurdity of this was noted in the dissenting judgment of Justice Darryl Rangiah when Peter’s case was heard in the Federal Court last year, in which he warned about ‘a Kafkaesque scenario of a person secretly accused and secretly found guilty of a disciplinary offence but unable reveal, under threat of further secret charges being brought, that he or she had ever been charged and found guilty.’ [Read here]
But that, unfortunately, is exactly what the High Court has done. In declaring – as the judgment did – that JCU’s stream of gag orders against Peter had ‘nothing to do with academic freedom’, the court has endorsed a culture of intimidation and censorship in our universities. As Morgan Begg wrote in The Australian today:
The implication seems to be that the university could launch an unlawful investigation against an employee, but it would be entirely lawful to force the employee to keep it a secret, in the eyes of the High Court. […]
But what the Court failed to recognise is that the entire campaign against Ridd flowed from the 2016 investigation. It was only then that Ridd fell within the crosshairs of censorious university administrators.
Moreover its endorsement of the university’s star chamber disciplinary system is a staggering rejection of natural justice, all the worse coming from the final court of appeal in the Australian legal system. [Read here]
And of course, had Peter not gone to the public with details of what the university was putting him through, he would not have been able to raise the thousands of small donations that funded his case against JCU. As IPA Adjunct Fellow Matthew Lesh wrote in The Spectator Australia: “It’s a Catch-22: go public to oppose a university disciplinary process and you can justifiably get fired.” [Read here]
******
And much thanks to Charles for republishing:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/10/13/plain-english-lost-on-the-high-court-of-australia/
The High Court judgement against Peter Ridd has irreparably damaged its reputation and can no longer be considered a court which solely relies on truth being the only acceptable evidence in determining its judgements. The evidence offered by James Cook University was at best suitable only for a kangaroo court and likewise the reputation of the university as a place of learning has been destroyed. Overseas interests will now justifiably consider withdrawing financial and academic support for James Cook University.
Just so I can repeat it to alarmists:
The case did not determine that Peter Ridd was wrong about the science, just that he was wrong to call out the University that *they* were.
Is that the bottom line?
Since he’s no longer at the university, is Ridd able to repeat the above, ad nauseum, in public without fear of litigation?
It is the case that the judgement from the High Court says nothing whatsoever about the science. While ordinary Australians may want to know whether Peter Ridd was correct to make the claims that he did about the state of the Great Barrier Reef, none of this was ever discussed by any of the lawyers. Indeed, ‘the law is an ass’ wrote Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare went as far as to say, ‘let’s kill all the lawyers’!
The later quote (let’s kill all the lawyers) is one of the more famous lines delivered by one of Shakespeare’s villains (Dick the Butcher) to make the point that the lawyers in the end maintain the privilege of the wealthy and actually stand in the way of justice for the ordinary person.
This will be the practical consequence of this High Court judgement. Those currently in power will use it to further crush dissent and move us further from any proper understanding of the true health of the Great Barrier Reef. The institutions say coral bleaching is just one example of carbon dioxide from industrialisation killing the natural environment. What will likely now be remembered is that the one academic who spoke against this was censured, sacked, and lost his appeal that went all the way to the High Court of Australia.
Peter Ridd raised an extraordinary amount of money from ordinary Australians to fund his defence in the hope the High Court would judge that the University was wrong to have censured him for speaking about the need for some quality assurance of Great Barrier Reef science. In the end the High Court found that indeed the University was wrong to have censured him: that these censures were unlawful. But the High Court also decided to find that because Peter Ridd resisted the unlawful censures, most specifically by talking about them, the university was right to have sacked him. He did not respect confidentiality; this was his greatest sin in the eyes of the High Court and indeed it is his knack for telling things as they were that initially got him in trouble with the university bureaucracy.
In fact, the High Court could surely, like Judge Salvatore Vasta following the primary hearings, have found that because of the inequity of the two censures Peter Ridd was correct to have fought them as he did, including through ridicule and satire, as he did. That the High Court choose to side with the university and its petty regulations in the end is a cause of great disappointment to me.
There is no reconciling the findings of Judge Vasta back in April 2019, nor the High Court’s findings on Wednesday, with the findings handed down by the Federal Circuit Court in July 2020 that more-or-less concluded intellectual freedom is an antiquated notion.
The word Kafkaesque is sometimes used as a reference to the absurd, and to courts that employ illogical circular reasoning to crush the individual – another term is Orwellian.
It does appear that the High Court has followed the majority of Western higher courts in that it has knowingly prevented the public examination and skilled cross-examination of various hard science aspects of “climate science”. This global judicial protection of a weak branch of science has quite a long history now. Peter Ridd’s case now may well rank equally with the notorious Steyn vs Mann case, wherein a NY Appeal Bench sat on its’ hands for over 18 months, refusing to make a decision in order to protect Mann from “discovery”.
A somewhat crude and childish comment above also reveals this motive. The hard weaknesses of “climate science” cannot be allowed to be skilfully cross-examined under oath in public. Doubtless the shallow will reply with sneering about “conspiracies”, yet the history of preventing hard, informed public debate on the actual details remains obvious. Publishing opposing papers in various journals simply ensures that the general public ignores such gobbledegook, as does the MSM, so the propaganda remains intact.
The headline description for this post by Jennifer M says it all. Except perhaps for the implication that plain english was deliberately lost by the Learned.
I would like to relate to a paper I was asked asked to investigate statistically and genetically in the mid 1980’s (No, I won’t name names here, even though it is many years since I last worked at a University), and I believe this is similar to the crux of the problem here.
That paper was a statistical and biological mess- yet it assumed a false life of its own.
Basically this paper was presented at a Conference in the USA, and became part of a “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”. The paper was NOT peer reviewed- as most Conference papers are not peer reviewed- like Professor Terry Hughes presentation that started all this.
And that is the problem in a nut shell.
Virtually no conference papers are peer reviewed, yet they get the “authenticity” of being published- in for example the quite prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as often being reported on television publicly by the very act of being in a conference. From that point on their findings are very hard to challenge because of the journal’s prestige, albeit after the fact, and that you have presented them to an audience of your peers- who I might add, most of the time have had no chance to go over the material beforehand.
Had Professor Hughes had his paper properly peer reviewed before the conference, there might have been a good chance that Peter Ridd would have been informed about it, and history taken a different path- out of the view of the public.
But then, why go to a conference to see what all your fellow scientists are up to if they have already published it, and your already know it.
Maybe conference papers should be heavily marked “NOT PEER REVIEWED”- Take with a grain of salt!
Just my thoughts.
Dickens’ phrase, from the lips of the Beadle, Mr. Bumble, were: “the law is a ass”. Bumble got his just desserts but his grammar remains intriguing. There is a parallel, I think, in “Cry in the Morning” by P. G. Wodehouse when Bertie remarked that Shakespeare “Sounds well, but doesn’t mean anything”. Duff Cooper may have been the target.
Otherwise, I’m not sure that worrying about the so-called universities has much point. They have become little more than bastions of falsehood and prejudice.
The court added a most interesting comment (para. 64), quoting J. S. Mill: ‘Whilst a prohibition upon disrespectful and discourteous conduct in intellectual expression might be a “convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world”, the “price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind” .’
This, to my mind, is a very strong statement of meaning and contrary to at least one of the arguments made by JCU to the Federal Court. How it will continue to be realised remains to be seen.
History will judge. Peter Ridd, Bob carter, your good self will join Galileo in the textbooks.
folks I am supporter of RIDD, however you must understand that in law CONTRACT IS KING. So please learn from this experience as the High Court affirmed that RIDD was in breach of his contract. Its as simple as that. Now go forth and learn how to use the law of contract in any negotiations you have.
Just filing this here
https://geoffsharrockinmelbourne.net/2021/11/01/peter-ridd-the-high-court-and-academic-freedom/?fbclid=IwAR1TDszgJYL1NtTxqDdn5uV_sZJKC0QAIpklqhh1EmbUA4TA3g1rCsEqnvk