[LINK] Academics branded 'anti-US over FTA research'

[Alan L Tyree]

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:17:41 +1000
Chris Maltby <chris at sw.oz.au> wrote:

> >> Alan L Tyree wrote:
> >>> Well, maybe. But as far as I know, the only academic in recent
> >>> times that has suffered *actual* censorship (in the form of being
> >>> deprived of the right to teach classes, etc) is Andrew Fraser at
> >>> Macquarie.
>  
> > On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:01:52 +0930 Glen Turner wrote:
> >> Well perhaps you should work for CSIRO and hold a view on
> >> global warming contrary to that of the government. That was
> >> notorious enough to be reported in Nature as "Culture of fear
> >> reigns at Australian research lab".
> 
> On Mon, Jul 31, 2006 at 04:05:24PM +1000, Alan L Tyree wrote:
> > I'm definitely not saying that unpopular views don't get robustly
> > rubbished. I still don't know of any academics who have suffered
> > "real" punishment as a result of unpopular views. Except Andrew.
> 
> I think it's important to note that there is a substantial difference
> between CSIRO scientists differing from the government's official
> view about climate change and disparaging comments made about racial
> differences to a suburban newspaper. There needs to be the freedom
> to discuss unpopular or disturbing topics, but there also needs to
> be a matching responsibility to do that in ways which advance the
> understanding of the field, not pander to public prejudice.
> 
> I have no objection to scholars making scholarly statements on any
> topic (including racial differences), but it's a different thing to
> support the right for scholars to make statements which are not even
> remotely scholarly and (for example) might be prohibited by laws
> against defamation or racial vilifaction.
> 
> At least to me, the intimidation of the CSIRO scientists and attempt
> to suppress the results of their research remains more of a threat to
> academic freedom than the way Macquarie University dealt with Fraser.
> 
> Chris
> 

Yep. The right to free speech depends entirely on what you want to say.
That was part of the point that I was making. We all support free
speech for people who are saying things that we agree with. We
generally oppose free speech for others.

We also support laws which restrict the right of people to say things
that we do not agree with.

Alan



-- 
Alan L Tyree                    http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel: +61 2 4782 2670            Mobile: +61 427 486 206
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