A
heads up for Down Under: for readers in Australia
and NZ
[Our
dossier on Professor Richard "Skunky"
Evans ]  Joel
Hayward: Martin
Lally
(a New
Zealand academic*)
challenges Professor
Richard "Skunky" Evans
[* Professor Martin
Lally, Associate Professor at Victoria University's
School of Economics and Finance, organised the
petition criticising the actions of the University
of Canterbury.] Thursday, August 28, 2003
Dear Richard
Thanks for your response, which appears
below. I appreciate that you are busy. I note that you don't wish to answer the
latest questions that I have posed. Of course, that
is your privilege. You also note that I have not
addressed any of the arguments that you put forward
in response to my first round of questions
(although strangely your email finishes with the
contrary claim that all of the ground has been
covered more than once). Your complaint is a fair
one to raise, and it was my intention to deal with
your arguments in due course. However, if you would
prefer me to do that now, I am happy to do so. I
would appreciate it if you framed your points in
terms of questions that you wish me to respond to.
If you wish, you can ask a set of questions or
alternatively ask one question, wait on my
response, then move to the next question (in the
style of a cross examination). At the end of all this (you will be the
judge of that), I hope that you will then be
willing to respond to my questions, but this is not
essential. I am interested in your questions at
least as much as I am in your answers, and I
acknowledge the possibility that I am wrong in this
matter. Your email here implicitly poses at least
one question. So, if you can forgive the
presumption, I will answer that one here. QUESTION 1: Should a
university recognise a work of holocaust
denial? 
READERS should be aware that the New
Zealand journalist Philip Matthews
who may contact them about Dr Hayward is
working for the newspaper The
Listener, and writing on behalf of a
special interest group which is trying to
destroy Dr Hayward's career.
|
ANSWER 1: The word university
here could be interpreted to mean a university
administrator or an academic acting as an examiner
on the thesis. I will consider both possibilities.
First, regarding university administrators, I do
not think that any university administrator should
assert that certain propositions regarding the past
are now settled, and must never again be questioned
in a thesis. This would be true even if no new
evidence had been unearthed, and therefore the
debate was limited to reinterpretation of the
existing evidence. Should new evidence be
unearthed, it would be doubly remarkable for any
university administrator to refuse to award a
degree that presented and analysed that new
information. To do so in the face of new
information would itself constitute a case of
denial.Turning now to the question of whether an
academic examiner on a thesis should recognise a
work of holocaust denial, my view is that they
should read it and then reach a conclusion based
upon that reading. I am not aware of any other
method of assessing a thesis. If there are other
recognised methodologies in assessing History
theses, I would be grateful to be apprised of
them. I look forward to your next question or
questions. Regards,
Martin Lally
Friday, 29 August 2003
Dear Martin, Apologies for the delay in replying. My time
over the last week has been fully taken up by
correcting the proofs of both English and German
editions of my next book, due out in
October. It's time to wrap this up, I think. As I
said in my last email, I am not going to answer
your latest questions because I think they are not
only loaded but also beside the point, which is not
procedural but substantive. Your additional
questions are even more pedantically remote from
the central issues of whether or not a university
should recognise a work of Holocaust denial, or a
work devoted to vindicating it. You yourself have
not addressed any of the central arguments I put
forward in response to your questions. I note that Dr Hayward was given
considerable space in
the New Zealand Herald on Monday to
attacking me, using the same selective and biased
techniques that are so evident in his MA thesis.
Lest anyone should take what he says seriously, let
me make the following points. - First, Hayward implies I am biased
because I was paid for my work. On the Irving
case I was
paid the standard hourly rate that
all expert witnesses are paid. Is Dr Hayward
implying that no expert witnesses in any court
cases can be trusted because they are paid for
their work? As for my commission from the NZJC
to report on Hayward's thesis, I undertook the
work (about four working days) on the same basis
as I would have done as an external examiner,
and I asked for the usual token fee that an
external examiner is paid. I did not want to be
seen to be doing the work on a political basis,
which no doubt I would have been accused of
doing had I lent my services free of charge, but
on a professional basis.
- Second, to repeat what I wrote
in the NZH, the Working Party did not
say
I was highly partisan - this is
pure invention on Hayward's part - but accepted
my criticisms of his thesis as resting on a
strong scholarly foundation.
- Thirdly, Hayward says I applied
excessively high standards in judging his
thesis. This is not so. Any thesis at any level,
even an undergraduate dissertation, has to
conform to basic standards of scholarship: it
has to master the relevant secondary literature
and it has to deal with its topic in a balanced,
obje ctive and thorough manner. Hayward's
thesis failed on all these
counts.
- Fourthly, I did point out that the topic
Hayward covered was far too large for an MA
thesis, and the thesis itself was far too long
and tried to cover far more ground than was
possible in the time available. This is the
fault of Canterbury University, whose then
regulations let him down. But it does not excuse
the systematic tendentiousness , bias, double
standards, lack of objectivity and all the other
faults that the Working Party agreed were
present in the thesis.
 Finally,
Dr Hayward repeats some of the Holocaust deniers'
claims that he supported in his thesis (that most
historians of the Holocaust are Jewish, for
example) and which, despite the selective quotes in
his article, his thesis used to try and discredit
their work. It would be nice to see him admit he
was wrong on this and other claims he makes in the
thesis, as he has not done so far.
I think we have covered all the ground more
than once now, so I'll sign off. Best wishes, Richard J. Evans
Professor of Modern
History
University of Cambridge  
Our dossier on the Joel
Hayward case | Our
dossier on Professor Richard "Skunky"
Evans -
NZ
Journalist Philip Matthews asks Lally how this
correspondence with Evans is being leaked to
this website
-
Aug 19, 2003: University
chief's job in doubt. The position of Canterbury
(NZ) University Vice-Chancellor Roy Sharp to be
reviewed after Hayward scandal
-
Richard J. Evans:
Academic standards the issue, not freedom |
Joel Hayward
replies, reminds readers that Evans was highly
paid to destroy him
-
Lecturer warns he
will stay at university to battle for academic
freedom
-
The petition
(pdf, 56K)
|
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to David Irving