“BLIND trust in authority
is the greatest enemy of the truth.”
– Albert Einstein
A BIG WIN for freedom of speech and academic freedom as former JCU Great Barrier Reef expert, Peter Ridd, wins wrongful dismissal case against James Cook ‘University’.
ALSO, a massive win for climate scepticism and the fight against sloppy, pseudoscientific ‘science’ driven by Leftist dominated academia driving the $2,000,000,000,000 US per year (2 Trillion) man-made global warming climate change agenda.
via The Australian :
James Cook professor’s sacking ruled ‘unlawful’
A Federal Court judge has ruled that James Cook University acted unlawfully when it sacked professor Peter Ridd after he publicly criticised the institution and one of its star scientists over claims about the impact global warming had on the Great Barrier Reef.
Professor Ridd, who worked at the university for 40 years, challenged the dismissal in the Federal Circuit Court, saying the university breached its own enterprise agreement which allowed all staff to express controversial or unpopular views.
The physics professor argued that the Townsville-based university, which is renowned for its marine science expertise, dismissed him for breaching the university’s code of conduct.
Handing down his decision today, judge Salvatore Vasta said that the 17 findings used by the university to justify the sacking were unlawful.
“The Court rules that the 17 findings made by the University, the two speech directions, the five confidentiality directions, the no satire direction, the censure and the final censure given by the University and the termination of employment of Professor Ridd by the University were all unlawful,” Judge Vasta said.
A penalty hearing will be set for a later date.
At a hearing last month, Professor Ridd’s barrister Stuart Wood argued his client was entitled to criticise his colleagues and the university’s perceived lack of quality assurance processes.
In 2016, Professor Ridd emailed a journalist to allege that images given to the media by the Australian Institute of Marine Science and Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority were misleading because they showed poorly affected corals, which were selected over nearby healthy coral and used to show “broad scale decline” of reef health.
Professor Ridd claimed the use of the images was “a dramatic example of how scientific organisations are happy to spin a story for their own purposes”.
He also said his colleague Professor Terry Hughes, the head of JCU’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, would “wriggle and squirm” when asked to explain the discrepancies in the images.
Professor Ridd was censured again when he repeated the claims on Sky News.
After a third alleged violation of the code of conduct, Professor Ridd was sacked in April 2018.
Ref.: https://climatism.blog/2019/04/16/massive-victory-for-climate-change-realism-and-academic-freedom/
Hubris on steroids @jcu – Uni “digging in” on Peter Ridd decision
By Anthony Watts – WUWT
Peter Ridd writes of this unbelievable example of arrogance and hubris from James Cook University on his GoFundMe page:
Dear All,
There has been a flurry of media activity on the case but the main news is that it looks as though the Vice Chancellor (VC) is digging in. She and the Provost Prof Chris Cocklin released an extraordinary statement saying the Judge was wrong on all 17 findings against JCU (see link below). In my opinion, she had not read Judge Vasta’s judgement and clearly does not comprehend what has just happened.
But this means that unless the JCU council (the governing body) deals with the VC, an appeal is likely. In my media statements I have repeatedly stated that the JCU council will be complicit in this mess if they do not deal with the VC and Provost. Due to the huge media response in Australia, the council will have heard this loud and clear.
JCU has near infinite resources from the taxpayer and the VC will not pay a cent when she ultimately loses. It matters not to JCU if they appeal on weak grounds, and the VC may well have retired from the university in the time it could take, perhaps 5 years, if it goes all the way to the high court.
An appeal will cost the best part of a million dollars – much more if it goes to the high court. But I reckon that if we are forced, we can raise the funds. I am very confident that we can win any appeal, although we would want to look closely at whatever mischief they come up with.
The fact is that we have the upper hand – we won the first round 17-nil. The university is bleeding reputation due to its own mistakes, and there is growing anger especially in North Queensland. If they think they can intimidate us with an appeal, they should think again.
Kind regards
Peter
https://www.jcu.edu.au/news/releases/2019/april/response-to-federal-circuit-court-judgement
Ref.: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/17/hubris-on-steroids-jcu-uni-digging-in-on-peter-ridd-decision/
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