White sand beaches. Palm trees waving in a gentle breeze. Read more

The Future of Our Universities is now in the past. The long-awaited symposium, hosted by the Initiative, took place on Wednesday at the Royal Society Apārangi in Wellington. Read more

As your Vice-Chancellor here at He Waka Kore Hoe (once known as Elizabeth University), I’m excited to announce the 17th consultation period (Round 3A) for our public panel on free speech, which will kick off next Monday, November 12th, 2031. I am grateful to all the groups who made submissions during the last round, including Anti-Racists for Climate Justice, Students Against Education, Queers for Palestine, Vegans Anonymous, Anonymous, the Philistine Society, Debating Debate Club, and More Mao Now! Read more

The Education and Training Act enshrines academic freedom in law. It distinguishes aspects of academic freedom over which the university itself has jurisdiction, from aspects that protect its students and academic staff from institutional interference. Read more

In a column that appeared in The Post on 23 February, Victoria University of Wellington Vice-Chancellor Nic Smith criticizes the coalition's commitment to have universities adopt a free speech policy. Smith notes that ACT Party leader david seymour ‘has previously criticised universities for declining to host certain speakers and argued the institutions should lose funding if they don't “protect free speech.”' The vice-chancellor then states that ‘one inference of all this is that anyone who wants to speak on campus should be able to do so.' But it wouldn't actually be valid to infer from Seymour's criticisms of recent deplatformings at New Zealand universities that he thinks that ‘anyone who wants to speak on campus should be able to do so.' You can, of course, think that Vice-Chancellor Jan Thomas was wrong to prevent Don Brash from speaking to a student politics club in August 2018 (for example) and at the same time recognize that random people can't simply turn up at a university without an invitation and expect to get a hearing. Read more

2015 was almost a decade ago. But it seems like a century. Read more

Readers will no doubt be aware of the WEF and of the many interesting and informative articles and posts about the organisation that can be found online. You may be aware, for example, that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as being the secret love child of Fidel Castro, is a WEF puppet. Read more

Last year, the Initiative released a report on administrative bloat at New Zealand universities. It showed that the majority of staff at New Zealand universities are non-academics, and that this has been the case for quite some time. Read more

Late last year, I taught my final course for Victoria University of Wellington, guiding 19 young Kiwis around Greece for the Classics field trip. The trip offered plenty of food for thought (not to mention food) for anyone interested (and how could you not be?) in the stupendous artistic and intellectual achievements of the ancient Greeks. Read more