The
Listener
New Zealand, September, 2003 To
the Editor
Listener
[New Zealand]
WE NOTE with interest your recent
article
about the Hayward/Fudge controversy at the
University of Canterbury (Canterbury
Tales, Sept 20), and its references to a
Petition
circulated by us and whose 120 signatories
include 60 academics. Your article
characterises "holocaust denial" as a form
of anti-Semitism, and finishes by stating
that "And in New Zealand, the
Holocaust deniers have found otherwise
reputable academics who are able to be
exploited by this hatred." As you should be perfectly aware, the
Petition (of which a copy was made
available to the writer of your article,
and can be obtained from me at martin.lally@vuw.ac.nz)
has absolutely nothing to do with the
content of Dr [Joel]
Haywood's thesis or with the content
of Dr Fudge's article
on the affair. It is concerned solely with
the processes that the University of
Canterbury followed and the dangerous
implications of these for fundamental
freedoms. Most particularly, it criticises
the University for its public
disparagement of the thesis of one of its
former students, despite the fact that its
own legal advice was that only dishonesty
provided grounds for acting against the
student, along with the fact that its own
judgement was that the thesis was not
dishonest. The following analogy might be useful.
Suppose it appeared that some police force
had tortured a suspect for the purpose of
gaining information, and you thought the
suspect both guilty and totally
reprehensible. Suppose also that a
petition was circulated criticising the
use of torture by the police, and it was
organised and supported by a number of
academics. Would it be sensible for you or
anyone else to state that supporters of
the suspect had "found otherwise reputable
academics who are able to be exploited"?
Would it not be more sensible to simply
write an article investigating the
allegation that the police had tortured
the suspect? If you agree that this would be a more
sensible approach in this case, why not
write an article that details the points
in the Petition, and then offer your view
on whether they are valid points of
criticism of the University of Canterbury.
Every day that passes with merely random
abuse, insinuation of Nazi links, and
assertions of being "exploited" by such
people, but no attempt to actually rebut
the points in the Petition, reinforces our
view that the points made in the Petition
are simply unassailable. On the other hand, if you actually
think that violations of due process
should be ignored in certain cases,
perhaps you could just say so, and we
would at least know where you stood. Armed
with this sort of clarification, the
University of Canterbury might then feel
emboldened to stone the next offender to
death, confident that any protests could
be rebutted with the same line of
argument. Dr
Martin Lally Committee for Action over the
Hayward/Fudge Events
at the University of
Canterbury  
Our dossier on
the Joel Hayward case-
Other
letters to The Listener
-
Reader's
letter by Martin Lally to The
Listener
-
The
Listener article
-
Canterbury
University (NZ) Council passes two
resolutions in Sept 2003 rejecting
complaints by Dr Thomas Fudge of book
burning and loss of academic freedom in
Hayward Case | Dr
Fudge's letter of response to these
resolutions | letter
from Martin Lally's committee
circulating these items
-
|
write
to David Irving