Peter Ridd writes of this unbelievable example of arrogance and hubris from James Cook University on his GoFundMe page:
Dear All,
There has been a flurry of media activity on the case but the main news is that it looks as though the Vice Chancellor (VC) is digging in. She and the Provost Prof Chris Cocklin released an extraordinary statement saying the Judge was wrong on all 17 findings against JCU (see link below). In my opinion, she had not read Judge Vasta’s judgement and clearly does not comprehend what has just happened.
But this means that unless the JCU council (the governing body) deals with the VC, an appeal is likely. In my media statements I have repeatedly stated that the JCU council will be complicit in this mess if they do not deal with the VC and Provost. Due to the huge media response in Australia, the council will have heard this loud and clear.
JCU has near infinite resources from the taxpayer and the VC will not pay a cent when she ultimately loses. It matters not to JCU if they appeal on weak grounds, and the VC may well have retired from the university in the time it could take, perhaps 5 years, if it goes all the way to the high court.
An appeal will cost the best part of a million dollars – much more if it goes to the high court. But I reckon that if we are forced, we can raise the funds. I am very confident that we can win any appeal, although we would want to look closely at whatever mischief they come up with.
The fact is that we have the upper hand – we won the first round 17-nil. The university is bleeding reputation due to its own mistakes, and there is growing anger especially in North Queensland. If they think they can intimidate us with an appeal, they should think again.
Kind regards
Peter
https://www.jcu.edu.au/news/releases/2019/april/response-to-federal-circuit-court-judgement
VC is an inappropriate acronym for vice-Chancellor, especially for James Cook University. JCU is the acronym for James Crook University.
I’ll chip in again.
I donated to his effort, and will do so again, at 5x to make sure he prevails.
I am behind Ridd all the way on this, but fear that JCU will just swamp him with their bottomless supply of Lion Fish photos.
This is an attack on the Scientific Method and on open debate of public policy in general. Dr. Ridd will have my continued support in the event that he needs it. Hopefully, saner minds will prevail.
I’d love to see the faces of the VC and the JCU council when they realize that this time the crowd funding will be more successful than before. I’ll be in again.
Imagine how much time they are wasting on this instead of running a University. Sort of shows how demanding their core roles are. The show off support for Peter has been impressive and I am pretty sure it will be even bigger for any appeal. A bit peeved to be $ supporting both sides of the argument though, even if JCUs side is involuntary.
I chipped in first time round and am ready to do so again.
You cannot appeal to relitigate the facts or the judge’s decision. You have to show the judge was not within his jurisdiction to rule, or made a procedural error of law.
Plaintiff demands that the defendant is combatitively litigant, clearly lost, and ask the judge to make the university post a $10 million dollar bond against appeal. The judge can shut the shit down.
What’s the use of having umpires if the losers won’t accept the judgement. These people are delusional and are exactly the same type as the losers in the US election and the loser remainers in Britain. I think that if the university chooses to appeal then the council and the Vice Chanceller should be held personally financially responsible.
The Vice Chancellor and the Provost have brought JCU into disrepute and damaged its standing consequence this matter with Professor Ridd. They have demonstrated that they are not fit to hold the esteemed office of VC and Provo respectively and they should resign without delay.
It matters not whether they agree or disagree with the judgement, they confirm their bias and prejudice with such contrite piffle.
Keep up the good work Peter and it sounds like we might need to make a financial contribution to assist
True Progressives never admit they were wrong. They always blame someone else. They blame others for not being smart enough to see how right they are. Or they blame others for not being of good character to see their moral failings.
For the Progressive who are running an institution (JCU in this case), the institution is part of the State in their view. And in a Progressive’s socialism-communism worldview, the State is never wrong. If the State seems wrong, it is only because WE didn’t understand the correctness of the State’s moral position to defend a “greater good”, for the means (denying someone a right, academic freedom in this case) is always justified by the end.
What I am saying is the VC will never relent. The only option for the University to ever recover its integrity is for the Council to tell the VC to resign or be fired. (In the military this is called accountability. Such accountability is a foreign concept to Progressives.)
Chris Murdoch QC is whispering in JCU’s ear “you can win this on appeal”.’
What the heck, taxpayers are paying for everything.
JCU’s legal team will milk it for everything and it’s worth millions to them.
Green-mafia will be talking judge shopping now.
Bill Shorten will be the boss soon . . .
And that’ll make judge shopping easy for the green mafia.
An appeal of a judgment of a Judge of the Federal Circuit Court can be heard by a single judge unless that judge considers it appropriate for the appeal to be heard by a Full Court (three or more Judges sitting together).
That’s where Shorten will make it happen for the green-mafia by ensuring the ‘right’ single judge hears the appeal.
For an appeal to succeed the Court must be convinced the Judge that heard the original case made an error of law and that the error was of such significance that the decision must be overturned.
Vasta (a brilliant judge) recently had one of his decisions overturned on appeal by three lefty appeals judges.
Universities harbor idiots of all stripes. That’s appropriate if you want students to truly explore all kinds of ideas, which I suppose, is the purpose of higher education. What I’ve noticed over the years is that some folks who wouldn’t make it in the greater world seem to find a safe cocoon in the university and may even rise in the ranks of administrators. I’ve also noticed some pretty odd people in student unions and other student groups. We’re talking about pretty far out on the tails of the distribution.
We have the specter of a student at U of Ottawa suing a student at Carleton U (also in Ottawa) for allegedly defamatory comments suggesting he is connected to the alt-right. link It’s not too hard to guess the affiliation of the writer of the linked article.
The loony left paints anyone who supports free speech as being part of the alt-right and draws the conclusion that free speech is therefore evil.
Agreed. Judge Vasta has not allowed much wriggle room in his written judgement for a progressive judge to overturn. Cl.14 in the FWC endorsed employment contract is surely superior to the ‘Code of Conduct’ policy. Whomever wrote JCU’s verbage should be barred from writing employment contracts and policy.
A university which silences dissenting opinion is not not worthy of the name and not fit to exist at all.
`walk towards the fire` as someone once said,
I`d chip in to sponsor an in-depth scientific, peer reviewed, review by Peter Ridd of the `90% of the reef is dead` report along the lines of Anthony`s review of the `thermometers in the jar` global warming video and get it published in the newspapers.
Entirely in a different field I came across a paper from an academic and wanted to know more. I found that worked at James Cook University and I decided not to bother.
They have already lost reputation by their own actions.
The journalist involved seems to have been remiss in forwarding the whole original email instead of just asking the questions Peter Ridd suggested.
The recipient seems to have reacted along the lines of ‘mummy, mummy, the nasty boy has called me rude names’ , when as an adult he should have responded with a reasoned argument to show he was in the right.
JCU seem to object to the judgement on the basis that the judge didn’t refer to previous case law.
Would case law have been relevant, and shouldn’t each case be judged on its own merits?
I too will chip in even if it goes all the way to the high court. The issues are too important and far reaching to allow the culprits to get away with anything.
I have noticed a trend world wide of organisations making some incredibly stupid and damaging decisions.
I also notice that in each case, the offending organisations are headed by women.
Coincidence? Or is there something deeper here?
As a retired senior Australian Lawyer, I was appalled by the actions of JCU throughout and I contributed to the fund to support Peter Ridd’s legal costs.
I will do so again in the event of any Appeal.
The Press Release by JCU appears to be written by someone unfamiliar with the text of Judge Vasta’s decision.
It tries to elevate the Code of Conduct above the EA in contradiction to the express findings of the Judge.
There are no questions of law at issue to found any Appeal.
Public and private are very different aspects and the VC may be making lots of nose to save face while off the record they known they are on to a loser. And of course they can pull out ‘we would have if it has not been for the ‘evil fossil fuel conspiracy’ and ‘right wing media’ , the stand-byes of the progressives.
The chances of them admitting they got it wrong where always very small .