This just released a couple of hours ago. While the reader can make up their own mind, my view is that it seems pretty weak, especially since his student researcher was also apparently terminated as I’m told her email address at Macquarie ceases to function.
Salby’s statement is here – Anthony
10 July 2013
Macquarie University does not normally comment on the circumstances under which employees leave the University. However, we feel in this instance it is necessary to do so in order to correct misinformation.
The decision to terminate Professor Murry Salby’s employment with Macquarie University had nothing to do with his views on climate change nor any other views. The University supports academic freedom of speech and freedom to pursue research interests.
Professor Salby’s employment was terminated firstly, because he did not fulfil his academic obligations, including the obligation to teach. After repeated directions to teach, this matter culminated in his refusal to undertake his teaching duties and he failed to arrive at a class he had been scheduled to take.
The University took this matter very seriously as the education and welfare of students is a primary concern. The second reason for his termination involved breaches of University policies in relation to travel and use of University resources.
The termination of his employment followed an extensive and detailed internal process, including two separate investigations undertaken by a committee chaired by a former Australian Industrial Relations Commissioner and including a union nominee.
Media Contact:
p: (02) 9850 1039 e: Joanna.wheatley@mq.edu.au
A copy of this release is available online at www.mq.edu.au/newsroom
===========================================================
The PDF I received from MS Wheatley is here: SalbyStatement_July2013
According to the PDF document properties, the statement appears to be authored by Golda Mitchell who can be seen here: http://marketing.mq.edu.au/media_and_communications/contact_the_media_and_communications_team/
Given the furor this has generated, it seems odd they’d leave this to the lowest person on the organizational ladder. -Anthony
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I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from Prof Salby soon, but I could imagine it’d be difficult to arrive at a class if your ticket home had been cancelled by the university.
He did not teach, because that was not his original contract, and the part about travel and university resources is the part where the university failed to fulfill their own contractual obligations to provide resources for several years and where travel was agreed and then the University changed it’s mind. The university also cancelled a flight back from Europe so that Professor Salby could not return to be part of those two investigations, which tried him in abstensia and refused to grant him right of reply or appeal.
The University stands in breach of contract and in dealing with Professor Salby in a most distasteful, and possibly, unlawful manner.
I would expect that the University should expect to be defending itself from legal proceedings covering several on-going breaches in the law.
It does seem strange that a disciplinary hearing would be held without all parties at the table, especially if one of the parties took steps to make sure the other would not be present.
The university cancelled a non-refundable ticket.
That is pure pettiness. There was nothing for the university to gain, but the punishment of Salby.
I would expect better from grade school children.
I suppose it’s refreshing to see there’s a University that doesn’t embrace the “Publish or perish” doctrine. It seems to me they could have refused international travel to force him to stay near the classroom or hold conference travel as a reward for good behavior.
It seems like a pretty thin case for dismissal at all let alone in such a harsh fashion. Normally there would be a paper trail of warnings and hearings leading to final dismissal and Prof. Salby has made no mention of this. Also natural justice would demand that he be allowed to be present with representation when the disciplinary committee met and he was not there.
For the university to say that it had nothing to do with his “heresy’ , well they would say that wouldn’t they?
I hope Prof. Salby has access to some good money because they have lots of it and when it comes to fighting the establishment it is always a good thing to remember they are spending other peoples money and so feel no pain whatsoever. Their egos are what matters and everything else is secondary.
I’m sure once the university conducts it’s own internal investigation, it will acquit itself of all charges and consider the matter closed!
It’s how they play the game!
This is Australia. Kindergarten, 3 year old tanties! Rudd is famous for these!
The have unleashed the full power of their Kangaroo Court system on him. There’s a simple reason why every thing they say about this sounds ugly. Because it *is* ugly.
Salby said they had reduced his role to that of “grading assistant,” a role usually played by younger graduate students. I wonder if that is the “teaching” that he failed to do. If so then there is no basis for criticizing Salby.
Typical Salem witch hunt, the lack of due process and the BS of failing to allow Dr. Salby to be present at his termination hearing is of course [snip] tactics. Our freedoms continue to be eroded by the Liberal elite intelligensia, in the name of the new One World.
Apparently Lord Monckton has spoken to Salby. Expect things to get more interesting in the next couple of days….
Basically, the university has acted in bad faith from the start. Maybe it’s purpose in offering Salby his position was to thwart his research and make sure his findings were delayed, suppressed and blocked from publication for as long as possible.
That’s all they have – he failed to show up for a class?
If the original contract agreed to had never been registered by the univerisity, and then modefied by Macquarie to reassign his duties to teaching, how is that valid? Salby obviously never agreed to such lowly assignments.
I’m sending a donation for Salby’s law suit agianst the university. Where do I send the money?
Sounds to me like there was a contract clause that required he does some teaching but it was only recently invoked; probably the sort of thing that most teachers would recognise, that there is a clause that they may be required to stand in for others as needed, but it could be used to “punish” someone by forcing them to do this to the detriment of there proper work.
But if there isn’t a contract in place anyway, as previously claimed by the university (via Murry) then it’s all a bit moot anyway.
A disciplinary hearing without the disciplinee surely is illegal – even under Canadian law?
Michael Palmer, if not showing up for class was a justification for termination, I know several tenured faculty at my graduate institution who’d have gotten the sack years, if not decades, ago.
OK, that’s a little bit more information, but still not enough for a solid judgement of who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s still “he said, they said.” Let’s see the contract and documentation of teaching assignments as well as evidence of failure to fulfill obligations on both sides of the argument. Skeptics require evidence, don’t they?
“However, we feel in this instance it is necessary to do so in order to correct misinformation.”
Macquarie University conducted disciplinary hearings in Dr. Salby’s absence and cancelled airline tickets without informing him. Does Macquarie University dispute this? No. They say he was in breach of his employment contract. Do they produce such a document? No.
It appears some of the fellow travellers in the AGW hoax are incapable of working out what losing an information war in the age of the Internet means. This is not like anything that has gone before. Their actions are now a matter of permanent record. Spin will not work in the long term. A few hundred thousand sceptics is not the issue. As the hoax inevitably collapses, billions of individuals with Internet access will be searching for the names of the guilty. Macquarie University have just written themselves into history. On the wrong side.
Sceptics will never forgive and the Internet will never forget.
if they could cancel the ticket it means they paid for it. what could’ve happened between them buying the ticket and cancelling it? that’s what I’d ask a tribunal to explain. otherwise leaving staff abroad after authorizing travel is akin to kidnapping them and should be a criminal matter.
We may be jumping too quickly.
The strangest part is that Dr Salby allowed this to go on for five years. He has a contract and that is basically of the end of the story. One wonders why he has not commented on this and any legal advice sought.
His contract does not need to be registered anywhere. The Courts will invariably give the benefit of the doubt to employees so why the reticence in commenting.
It would be interesting to see the actual contract Prof. Salby signed. Does it specifically state that he isrequired to teach classes? If not then the University is being disingenuous at best or lying outright at worst. I think there are grounds for Breach of Contract proceedings against the University.
This is good for Salby. Macquarie University’s transparent excuse is a now matter of public record and they’re stuck with it. It should be a simple matter of comparing the terms of Salby’s contract to their ‘Statement of Termination’ and award damages accordingly.
I hope Salby’s graduate student sues as well.
Theo Goodwin says:
July 10, 2013 at 8:22 am
Salby said they had reduced his role to that of “grading assistant,” a role usually played by younger graduate students. I wonder if that is the “teaching” that he failed to do. If so then there is no basis for criticizing Salby.
Something like that was what it sounded like to me. It would amount to a form of constructive dismissal.