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Government to change free speech rules for universities (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 4 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The coalition is tweaking university regulations to curb what it says is an increasingly "risk-averse approach" to free speech.

The proposed changes will set clear expectations on how universities should approach freedom of speech issues.

Each university will then have to adopt a "freedom of speech statement" consistent with the central government's expectations. The changes will also prohibit tertiary institutions from adopting positions on issues that do not relate to their core functions.

"Despite being required by the Education Act and the Bill of Rights Act to uphold academic freedom and freedom of expression, there is a growing trend of universities deplatforming speakers and cancelling events where they might be perceived as controversial or offensive.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

They have been been welcomed by the Free Speech Union, which said academic freedom is under threat, but the TEU said there was no problem to solve.

The free speech union is a NZ offshoot of a UK based body. Reading over a few of their campaigns, the wording they use seems reasonable (if somewhat angry) on the surface, but whist reading the feeling is very much of dogwhistle style politics.

Such as:

it could make it illegal to misuse someone’s pronouns or limit schools' boards of trustees even more in how they present diverse perspectives on gender.

This is representative of a lot of the rhetoric on the site, on the surface it seems ok, it makes it sound like making a mistake will be a criminal act; but the biggest dogwhistle is "diverse perspective's", this is clear bull shit, they want institutions (especially schools) presenting views on gender/sexuality that are very much not representative of reality. The site doesn't say who is funding them, it would be interesting to see that information.

...

A great response from the TEU:

"So it feels like we've got a heavy-handed approach from a government that apparently is anti-regulation but is now going to put in place the whole lot of requirements on a community that just doesn't need it."

...

This is just bad policy. It is not about freedom of speech, this is about allowing divisive views an official platform, to legitimize them in the eyes of the public.