More on Buchanan

The Herald reports:

Palestinian activists at Auckland University appear to have helped – unwittingly or deliberately – to bring down one of their strongest champions in this country, sacked political scientist Paul Buchanan.

Cactus Kate also blogged on Buchanan:

Underlying the principle of free speech is to defend the rights of people you do not necessarily agree with or like.

Dr Paul Buchanan supported alleged terrorist Ahmed Zaoui, is obviously an anti-Bush pedaling American apologist with weak leanings and terrible typing skills, but I defend his right to grumpily tell students who are obviously rubbish that they are rubbish. It’s possibly the first time this pampered little Daddy’s girl has ever been told she is not good at something. That in itself would have been shock enough. I doubt anyone in the Emirates has ever fronted up with the truth.

If I rolled up at Hong Kong University and enrolled in an Engineering class taught in Cantonese, I would fail unless I had an adequate understanding of both Engineering and Cantonese. Which I don’t. Not a bit. I would not expect to pass or be given special tuition or privileges because I was an English speaker.

Auckland University is ranked in the top 50 Universities in the World. I expect it to maintain this reputation to maintain the reputation of my degrees and it does not help sacking a specialist senior lecturer for in effect demanding higher standards from a student accepted to go there who is not up to the task, based on how much money she was prepared to pay. That won’t uphold the reputation of anything in New Zealand.

You know if I was Vice-Chancellor of Victoria, I’d be chatting to Dr Buchanan right now about opportunities in Wellington.