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Ridd appeal: JCU spent a fortune to win the case and trash its own reputation

 Ridd loses: Federal Court rules that science is whatever the JCU Vice Chancellor says it is.

JCU wins the appeal on all 17 points that Justice Vasta scathingly awarded to Peter Ridd.

James Cook University LogoIf, hypothetically, fraud was happening at JCU and a staff member reported it, the Australian Federal Court decision has just declared that its fine for JCU to sack that whistleblower for being uncolliegiate.

As I said, this is a case so pointless that even if JCU wins, it loses. And it has spent a fortune to win the legal battle and prove that we cannot trust anything anyone says from JCU.

This win doesn’t just tarnish the VC and admin, it taints everyone who works there.  No matter what any good academic says at JCU, the world will wonder what they didn’t say. We can’t know whether they would have preferred to say something else, but couldn’t out of fear that they will be sacked because the VC might not like it.

To recap Peter Ridds crimes: he said “for your amusement” in an email once. (Illegal satire). He said “ We can no longer rely on our science institutions.” He talked about the replication crisis in science, which was borne out in research, and he spotted duplicated photos that appear to be fraudulent by a JCU researcher who was separately was found guilty of fabricating data in Sweden.

After this ruling, nothing any academic at JCU says can be trusted. Are they censoring what they really think? Is JCU riddled with incompetence but the staff won’t dare say so because they are frightened to use their emails? Is the evidence fraudulent?  Could be. JCU doesn’t care if it is. They only care if they look good. Unfortunately, they look terrible. JCU has spent a fortune defending the indefensible.

Exactly how much did they burn on the pyre of their own reputation? Likely $2 million and counting.

It’s time the The Hon Dan Tehan explained why taxpayers should fund research at JCU which has no quality control, wastes money on lawyers, doesn’t investigate fraud, and does not enshrine free speech in employment contracts.

The government could fix this entire embarrassing debacle in five minutes. They just need to withhold JCU funding til the uni protects free speech — rehires Ridd, and sacks the VC Sandra Harding AO who was paid $975,000 in 2018.

Academic Freedom is “historical” because “the internet”?

The judges reasoning is essentially that academic freedom doesn’t mean freedom in academia because J S Mill, John Locke and Isiah Berlin didn’t have any facebook trolls.

From Gideon Rozner at the IPA:

… this decision has proven how serious the freedom of speech crisis on campus is. You can read the judgment here, but this part in particular – found at paragraph 94 – is absolutely unbelievable:

There is little to be gained in resorting to historical concepts and definitions of academic freedom. Whatever the concept once meant, it has evolved to take into account contemporary circumstances which present a challenge to it, including the internet, social media and trolling, none of which informed the view of persons such as J S Mill, John Locke, Isaiah Berlin and others who have written on the topic.

The judges argue that academic freedom is indispensable to universities, but is dispensable enough to toss to the wind. The right of Professors to speak is now determined by students who are demanding safe spaces where their favourite delusions can hide. The judges admit they are in uncharted territory.

Australian law is now set by teenage twitter mobs.

The court went on to quote a passage from an academic textbook that endorses the view that intellectual freedom is an outdated concept:

Academic freedom plays an indispensable role in fulfilling the mission of the university… But a host of new challenges have arisen in recent years in response to the changing norms and expectations of the university. With the increasing role of the Internet in research, the rise of social media in both professional and extramural exchanges, and student demands for accommodations such as content warnings and safe spaces, the parameters of, and challenges to, academic freedom often leave us in unchartered territory.

Jennifer Marohasy: University Appeal Upheld, Peter Ridd Loses – We all Lose

Today the University won in the Federal Court. In the judgement, Peter Ridd’s academic freedom is portrayed as his ‘personal opinion’.

It is not Peter Ridd’s personal opinion that the corals are alive, and the Great Barrier Reef resilient to climate change. It is fact. I’ve seen the coral reefs whose health is contested with my own eyes: they are very much alive.

What is dead is academic freedom in Australia.

 This is not a one off. JCU has a pattern of evicting, blackbanning, and ousting people who disagree with the bureaucrats pet fashions (vale, Bob Carter!). In this culture, more funding means more strangling. So just stop.

The Peter Ridd story:

h/t  David B, The IPA, Chris Dawson, Tom B.

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