Melbourne Uni Strikes Again
As news of Maya Forstater’s win on appeal in the UK High Court spreads across news platforms, websites and social media, here in Australia, women (and to a much lesser degree, men) continue to be punished for not subscribing to a set of beliefs which are aimed at the destruction of girls’ and women’s sex-based rights, as well as other select human rights and freedoms of every Australian.
Just a few hours ago, Melbourne University made Australian headlines for making a decision which is in opposition to the human rights and freedoms of their employees, again. This time, with extra discrimination and alienation to top it off via public calls for Dr. Holly Lawford-Smith to be suspended. If that wasn’t enough, the vice-chancellor threw in some high-level gaslighting.
Melbourne University vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell says transgender people “confront the daily threat of violence.”
No. They do not. You know who does? Women and girls. We also live with daily violence, not just threats of violence. Some of Duncan’s students have threatened university staff and others on campus with violence. Women on campus were victims of assault at the hands of believers of “gender identity,” yet Duncan and other staff at the University of Melbourne do nothing to stop these breaches of human rights from being carried out on campus and do nothing to protect well-established and universally accepted human rights.
I have covered this specific issue before, and if you take the time to read one or more of my articles and blogs, you will see that there is only one party involved that is engaging in harassment or using any form of language that could cause harm. As mentioned, members of said party/group assaulted women on the Melbourne campus.
Now, back to the Vice-Chancellor’s annual address to the University of Melbourne community, which was delivered via Zoom from University Hall, with University Council members present, on Tuesday 15 June 2021:
When I think of a great campus-based university, I think first and foremost about people. We are a very particular type of community. People of the most diverse kinds come here to develop and grow. Young people starting out on their journey of discovery; people from very different ethnic and national backgrounds; people holding the most divergent political and religious opinions imaginable. We are a population that includes individuals with an amazing array of abilities and disabilities. With this incredible diversity and a shared focus on learning, communicating and extending knowledge, there is, in my view, nowhere better to be.
If this is true, Duncan, then why is the targeted harassment of a professor being allowed, and why is no one with authority doing anything about it?
Why is Melbourne Uni staff so insistent to quell curiosity and the challenging of ideas, which, surely we can agree is a requirement for higher education? Duncan boasts about having the most divergent political and religious opinions possible within the Melbourne Uni community, yet he wants to put an end to that diversity. He wants to isolate and demonize those that do not conform to a set of beliefs and practices which defy laws of nature and defy reality.
What I would like to see, building on these education-focused conversations of the present moment, is an even richer dialogue across our campuses about what it means to be a fantastic University community.
Really, Duncan? Really? You are taking the piss, mate.
Look at what this man has to say next:
One of the forces binding any great community is respect. As we build for a successful future at Melbourne, we must hold this principle at the forefront of our minds. There are several reasons for this. The most obvious is that we are living through an important cultural moment right now, in which women - and not only women - are raising their voices to demand respect from institutions.
My response is: that respect is overdue, and we must do more, as a University, to deliver respect to all members of our community, and to model that respect for the wider world.
…
One response to this challenge is to ensure that we take steps to elevate and encourage the voices of women when they want to speak out against inappropriate behaviours and sexual harassment.
“Respect is overdue?” This man is definitely antagonizing women with his commentary.
Are you as angry as I am? Not yet? Well, let’s continue.
We must try hard on all sides to respect all parties in this debate. I will start by saying that emotional distress and anguish caused to transgender people by inappropriate words being spoken and written is very real, and it is the responsibility of all of us not to add to this burden. This is heightened, and perhaps made much more understandable, when you learn of the sometimes daily threat of physical violence that transgender people confront.
Duncan mentions respect again, yet is unwilling to give respect to particular staff members, in spite of saying this earlier in his address:
I want to give my heartfelt thanks publicly to all staff members who are teaching and supporting education at Melbourne, for the brilliant work you did last year, and for the gargantuan effort you are putting in now. I know that your current workload is heavy, and we must continue to think about how to reduce this. But in this moment, our students appreciate your efforts so much. I know this because time and again we are receiving feedback from students about how much they love being back in 2021, interacting with fellow students and with academic staff, and feeling that they belong to a great, campus-based community of scholars.
Duncan also says this, later in his address:
It means respect for people with whose views we might strongly disagree, and it even means respect for people we might dislike.
So, we have a female professor that has been threatened, ostracized and harassed, and we have other women that have been harassed and assaulted, yet Duncan wants to talk about “words” being “spoken” and “written,” in spite of also saying that there needs to be respect for people with whose views we might strongly disagree.
From the article in The Age:
The union also called for Associate Professor Lawford-Smith to be suspended until she could demonstrate concrete plans to create a safe and respectful environment for transgender and sex worker students and staff.
What about the safety of the women being genuinely threatened and made to feel unsafe? What about the women that were assaulted on campus at the Melbourne University? Never mind the fact that Dr. Lawford-Smith has not said or done anything to genuinely cause fear or harm, in any way, shape or form.
How can this blatant hypocrisy and overriding of fundamental human rights be happening in our universities?
Well, this is part of a much larger problem in Australia.
Not only are we shockingly behind many other countries when it comes to standards for the rights of girls and women, but the ragtag collection of rights we currently have are being eroded at an alarming rate, in spite of strong international protections against this exact occurrence.
As I discuss here, our human rights are being breached on a daily basis in Australia by legal provisions pertaining to the religious-based set of beliefs known as “gender identity,” and it’s not just the sex-based rights of girls and women being neglected and denied.
How long can this continue to happen without legal interference? For how long can our government continue to enforce laws which require human rights breaches, and for how long can international best practices be routinely ignored?
End to sex-based stereotypes - https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cedaw.aspx
“[A] group or person [does not have] any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms recognized“ - this is included in more than one piece of legislation, Treaty or Convention - https://www.ohchr.org/.../professionalint.../pages/ccpr.aspx
“ARTICLE 14 Prohibition of discrimination The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.” - https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/convention_eng.pdf
Article 18 Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontier. - https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/udhr.pdf
As we can see by recent events in the UK regarding Stonewall, screwing around with the law or interpretations of the law is not a wise decision for our government to make, and it certainly is not wise for Vice-Chancellor’s to introduce dogmatic ideals into universities.
When will our representatives do the right thing? When will they protect the rights and freedoms of women and girls? Will they protect the human rights of all Australians from destruction by “gender identity?” How long until they do?
These are important questions that we need as many Australians to be regularly asking of our MP’s and Ministers. We cannot let up the fight, especially while women are being targeted and at risk of harassment, loss of income and worse.
I have a message for Duncan and for all of the Australian politicians, so-called legal experts and persons with authority in this country that are responsible for the legislative mess we find ourselves in currently:
We refuse to accept this dogma and we support our sisters that are being targeted. Look around the globe at the unravelling of this religious-based attack on the rights of children, girls, women and every day Australians, and get out now before you, too, are dragged to court for human rights atrocities.
- Critical Thinker
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