As part of its aspiration to be “Tiriti-led”, the University of Otago has embarked on a consultation process to re-brand. The proposed change involves a new logo and a new, deeply symbolic Māori name: Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka.

Universities occasionally change logos, names and marketing strategies. All New Zealand institutions have added te reo Māori to their original titles, often opting for a literal translation — “Te Whare Wānanga” — to describe their status as a university. But Otago is taking it a step further.

Metaphorically, “whakaihu” refers to the university’s place as the country’s oldest university, as well as its Māori students often being the first to graduate from their whanau and communities. And it symbolically includes everyone on the “waka”.

That is exactly what a university is supposed to be, of course — a place for everyone. A place where people are free to think and develop ideas, even contested or unpopular ones.

As the Education and Training Act 2020 says, universities must operate as the “critic and conscience of society”.

But being “Tiriti-led” is not as straightforward. It throws into sharp relief where universities sit in relation to the Crown under te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi. This, in turn, raises quite fundamental questions about what a university is in the first place.

The University has collaborated with mana whenua to create a proposed new visual identity including a new Māori name and tohu (symbol), to sit along the official University of Otago name, which we believe represent where we have come from and where we’re going. pic.twitter.com/mZ86NPOzE2

— University of Otago (@otago) March 15, 2023

What is te Tiriti, what is a university?
Essentially, te Tiriti o Waitangi was the Māori language agreement in 1840 between Māori hapu and the British Crown which set out the terms of British settlement. Britain could establish government over its own people, hapu would retain authority over their own affairs.

Māori would enjoy the “rights and privileges” of British subjects, a legal status which continues to evolve as New Zealand citizenship. The Treaty of Waitangi is an English language version of the agreement with different and less favourable emphases for Māori.

By wanting to become “Tiriti-led”, Otago has decided it is part of the Crown party to this agreement. This makes Kai Tahu, as mana whenua (people of the land), the university’s “principal Tiriti partner”.

By contrast, when Massey University says it’s Tiriti-led, it doesn’t explicitly say it’s part of the Crown. Auckland University of Technology’s vice-chancellor has said his university is Tiriti-led, but there’s no definition to be easily found on the public record.

Styling a relationship in this way is significant — but not necessarily in ways that keep faith with te Tiriti o Waitangi, or with the essential purposes of a university.

Universities are owned and principally funded by the Crown. But their obligation to independent scholarship means they cannot be part of the Crown in the same way as a government department.

Universities don not take direction from ministers in the same way, and their staff are not public servants. They are not part of the executive branch of government.

Together with their students and graduates, academics are the university — a community of scholars obliged to contribute to the discovery and sharing of knowledge, but not obliged to serve the government of the day.

Us and them
Parliament and the executive (government ministers) together decide what te Tiriti means to the Crown side of the relationship. Public servants offer advice, but ultimately take ministers’ instructions on giving effect to whatever is the Crown’s Tiriti policy.

Academics, however, can take a different view. They are not bound by what the Crown side of the agreement thinks. And, as developments in te Tiriti policy show, academic independence makes a difference.

In 1877, New Zealand’s Supreme Court found the Treaty was legally a “simple nullity” because it had not been incorporated into domestic law. It wasn’t the public servant’s role to object, at least not in public. That kind of intellectual freedom belongs elsewhere. Explicitly, it’s one of the reasons universities exist.

Academics — Māori and others — have contributed significantly to developments in te Tiriti policy since 1877, especially in more recent years. Their contributions have often contested prevailing political thought. Universities have given Māori academics — and through them, Māori communities — the kind of voice unavailable to public servants working for the Crown partner.

Partnership is one of the “Treaty principles”, developed legally and politically as an interpretive guide to the agreement. But partnership creates a “them” and “us” binary.

In my book, Sharing the Sovereign: recognition, treaties and the state, I show how this binary encourages people to think of the Crown as exclusively Pākehā. Any institution that is not solely Māori is an institution that belongs to “them”.

This reinforces Māori separation from the university as an institution that should belong to all of us — and to each of us in our own ways.

Academics are not public servants
If an institution represents one side of a partnership, that institution cannot be a “place for everyone”. A Māori student or staff member should be able to say, “I belong here as much as anybody else, with the same rights, opportunities and obligations to contribute to the institution’s culture, values and purpose.”

That includes the right to study and teach te Tiriti with an independence that is not available to public servants.

In 2020, I helped develop “Critical Tiriti Analysis”, a policy evaluation method that could be used to assess public policy consistency with te Tiriti. While anecdotally it seems now to be widely used across the public service, it’s not something likely to have been written by a public servant.

The Crown is a cautious Tiriti partner.

Thoroughness and objectivity — but not political caution — guide academic contributions to policy debate. Such contributions are different in style and purpose from the kind of policy making that it is the duty of the public service to undertake.

Universities are not the Crown in the same sense, and this is why they are not Tiriti partners.

Dr Dominic O’Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Two high-profile University of Auckland academics raised important questions about academic freedom with their complaint to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) that their employer had failed its duty of care to them.

Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles and Professor Shaun Hendy have become well known for their work explaining the science behind covid-19 and guiding the public and government response.

But not everyone has agreed with that response or valued their contribution, and the academics have been threatened by what they have called “a small but venomous sector of the public”. They argued the university had not adequately responded to their safety concerns and requests for protection.

The case has now been referred to the Employment Court and the outcome for all parties remains unknown.

My focus is on the initial determination by the ERA, which referred to a letter from the university to Wiles and Hendy in August 2021 that urged them “to keep their public commentary to a minimum and suggested they take paid leave to enable them ‘to minimise any social media comments at present’.”

According to the ERA, this advice was “apparently given after [the university] received recommendations from its legal advisors to amend its policies so as to ‘not require’ its employees to provide public commentary, in order to limit its potential liability for online harassment.”

The ERA also noted the university “says that the applicants are not ‘expected’ or required to provide public commentary on COVID-19 as part of their employment or roles with the respondent, but it acknowledges they are entitled to do so.”

This issue is central to my concerns about academic freedom.

Some words from me on the abuse and harassment I’ve been subjected to on a near-daily basis for almost 2 years as a scientist speaking to the media about the pandemic https://t.co/qpvy2VJHMs

— Dr Siouxsie Wiles (@SiouxsieW) January 7, 2022

Freedom and risk
The academics argued that the university is statutorily required to “accept a role as critic and conscience of society” – as is set out under section 268 of the Education and Training Act 2020.

Universities routinely fulfil this role when academic staff and students state controversial or unpopular opinions and the results of their independent scholarship. Asking academics to step back from those roles to avoid risk seems to acknowledge that the threat derives from them doing their work.

I also fail to see how it would mitigate risk. An electrician who tried to mitigate the risk of electrocution by spending less time around wires hasn’t actually reduced the risk of electrocution when doing their job. They’ve just reduced the amount of time they are doing their job.

The Auckland academics are not the first to receive threats because of their “critic and conscience” activities. In the US, my former boss Dr Anthony Fauci says he, too, has received death threats from members of the public because of his work on the pandemic.

Less visible but still damaging threats or derogatory comments can come from within the university community, too. Systemic discrimination based on gender and race is well documented in academia. And increasingly, there are conflicts arising out of commercial interests in public research organisations.

Elsewhere it can be even more dangerous, such as the state-sponsored attacks on academics reported in Turkey. As a fellow scientist, I empathise with colleagues forced into the spotlight by virtue of their expertise or conscience.

Uses and limits of institutional power
Universities provide an important protection of academic freedom by not using their power as employers to stifle opinion. But it’s not enough. Universities should be more active in enabling academics to fulfil their role as critic and conscience of society so that, as expected by parliament, academic freedom is “preserved and enhanced”.

But there are also limits. No university in Aotearoa New Zealand has the scale to protect its students and staff from the concerted actions of a hostile country, a multi-billion dollar multinational company, or even the whispers of co-conspirators at coffee breaks during the ranking of grants.

What universities should do cannot exceed what they can do.

A coalition of government, universities, unions, staff and students needs to work together to redefine what can be done.

The government could reaffirm its commitment to critic-and-conscience activities by creating or re-purposing funding explicitly for these. Accountability will follow because universities would be required to expose that activity to public oversight.

The expectations of the university and the government to preserve and enhance academic freedom should become a normal conversation.

The risk is governments might want to influence what does and does not constitute being a critic and conscience of society, and use funding to stifle criticism of its policies. While this risk exists already, the temptation to constrain academic freedom could become stronger.

But balance would be provided by using the United Nations’ higher education declaration as a benchmark, through the transparency of the funding accountability exercise, and the declared precondition the funding allocation process be subject to ongoing and open scrutiny by university staff and students.

Accepting risk with freedom
Universities would be expected to use their additional resources to enable students and staff, as safely as possible, to use their academic freedom for public service.

Jurisdictional responsibilities could be negotiated between universities and government so that, where appropriate, a threat requiring more than campus security would be covered by the country’s police or defence resources.

But students and staff have some responsibilities, too. The university community cannot and should not leave its own protection to others. It needs to take a greater role in self-policing prejudice, privilege and conflicts of interest within the academic community itself.

Confronting the ultimate holders of power within their own academies and professional bodies will be the most painful action for members. But it would be worse for the community to fail in this and therefore do less as the critic and conscience of society.

If the use of academic freedom did not create risk, parliament would not have needed to legislate for its protection. But that risk should not be shouldered by Wiles and Hendy, or anyone else, alone.

Dr Jack Heinemann is professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz