Hosking says Massey VC must go

Mike Hosking writes:

What a scandal eh? And if Massey values it’s reputation, Jan Thomas is gone.

I suspect most of us knew that when it came to the Don Brash fiasco the security excuse was bogus, given it never really got detailed and the police were never called.

But little did we know just how fundamentally dishonest Jan Thomas would appear to be in this matter. …

The campus, the university, the home of free speech, the exchange of ideas, the heated debate, the ability to learn through diversity, the welcoming of diversity, the open arms approach to expression. Well, that’s all been made a joke. The university of 2018 is a hijacked enclave of hand wringing and political correctness.

It’s where offence is guarded, if not policed against, where views held must adhere to hierarchies, where there is a gate keeper driven by the Treaty of Waitangi and its politically correct outworking.

It’s where what was once welcomed is now to be closed down at all costs. And, tragically, seemingly done so with dishonesty, subterfuge and underhand tactics.

I’m not sure what’s worse, the overarching agenda that it’s our view or no view, or what seems dishonesty keeping it in place.

Is a politically driven view of the world, a left-leaning one, of more danger to the community? Or the fact that morally these people will seemingly stop at nothing to drive it, and protect it?

There is nothing wrong with holding a view as clearly Thomas does. But to me the protection of that view at the expense of other views, especially on a place like a campus, is a crime, certainly morally.

And to go to such extent and effort to have your view, and your view alone, enforced smacks of an extraordinary level of paranoia.

A view well held is a view that can be defended and debated.

But so far this seems a basic abuse of power by dishonesty. I would have thought it is a sackable offence. You’d like to think she’d quit in humiliation. But I hope the university doesn’t give her the chance.

Thomas has a vision of the Treaty of Waitangi that made her think anyone who disagrees with that vision has no place being allowed to speak at Massey, let alone work there or possible even study there.

The OIA shows that she got the rules changed for events so event organisers had to agree that no event they ran could go against Massey being a Treaty led university, and that also applied to their guest speakers.

So if you disagree that the Treaty of Waitangi is a partnership (as Winston Peters does), she doesn’t want those views on campus as they may upset some staff.