The Free Speech Union’s targeting of Universities: Why we must resist the distortions

Monday 17 March 2025, By Professor Mohan Dutta



Universities have increasingly found themselves as targets of Far-Right campaigns seeking to destabilize them. In Aotearoa as in connected settler colonial spaces, this Far-Right campaign is the face of white supremacy, seeking to platform extremists, and concocting a discourse of panic around the Western University in danger because of the struggles put forth by Indigenous, Black, ethnic migrant and diverse intersectional communities against the prevailing ideology of white supremacy.

At the core of the moral panic propagated by the Far-Right is the construction of the University as a hallowed institution of Western civilization (as if Universities and knowledge generating spaces didn’t exist outside of the West). Projecting Indigenous, Black, and migrant communities as threats to Western values, the racist campaign of the Far Right seeks to return the modern University to its good old days. Consider the following post by McGimpsey, a Case, Research and Drafting Advisor at the FSU until March, 2024.

These good old days reflect the times before critical race theorydiversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); and decolonization. In Aotearoa, these good old days are concocted fabrications of a past pre Te Tiriti.

These good old days are days of yore before the colored multitude took over the Universities and turned them into woke bastions!

Positioning itself as the advocate of free speech in Aotearoa and uncritically deployed by the media as a credible source on free speech issues (in spite of multiple analyses that have debunked the methods deployed by the FSU), the Free Speech Union draws on this narrative of decolonization and DEI as threats to the Western ideals of academic freedom. 

It glorifies a false narrative of the Anglosphere as the strongest anchor for peace and prosperity, actively erasing the empirically documented history of colonial violence. Consider the following post from the FSU’s X handle, which the handle later apologized for after being publicly called out for the racism.

The FSU is very much a part of the broader global infrastructure of propaganda seeking to impose a narrow definition of free speech and academic freedom on Universities, strategically conflating the two, driven by the agenda of upholding and reproducing the hegemonic status quo.

This broader context offers explanatory ground for understanding the systemic attack launched by FSU on Massey University. The University and its progressive vision that aspires to build a future shaped by Te Tiriti offers a decolonising register that fundamentally threatens the ideology of white supremacy. An earlier decision by the University to not host an event with Don Brash because of the leadership’s worry around being seen as endorsing racism placed it as a target of the FSU.

It is no surprise then that the PULSE survey on organizational climate at Massey University secured through an OIA request becomes the lightning rod for FSU to amplify its campaign targeting the University. The FSU framing of the survey is constructed around ideas of academic freedom. An FSU letter and an RNZ story quoting the FSU state, “Universities rely on voices being free. How do academics progress knowledge in an environment that doesn’t welcome debate and dissenting ideas?”

The FSU hyperbole would lead the reader to believe academic freedom is under threat at Massey. Yet,  critical interrogation of the claim lays visible its vacuous form. The hyperbole from FSU is in response to a qualitative comment on the section on Two-way communication, which stated, “Staff also fear that they are not safe to express their honest opinions for fear of reprisal of being seen as not towing the party line.” That cherry picked sentence (We know from my past analyses that the FSU has a penchant for cherry picking responses to fit its ideological agenda) is part of a broader excerpt in a section on staff responses to the prompt, “At Massey University there is open and honest two-way communication.” The prompt had nothing to do with progressing knowledge within one’s own expertise area and the freedom to do so.

The broader paragraph that showcased the example read:

“Staff feel there is a lack of open and honest two-way communication at Massey University. They perceive that senior leadership is not transparent and that important decisions are made without sufficient consultation or input from staff and students. Staff also feel that they are not safe to express their honest opinions for fear of reprisal or being seen as not towing the party line.” The paragraph in its entirety seems to be speaking to the decision-making and consultation processes in the management and administration of the University. It is clear that the staff perceptions of two-way communication are around the University’s day-to-day management functions, not around academic freedom in topic areas of expertise. 

The same section also has positive and neutral examples of staff response. The positive response for instance states:

“Staff feel confident that their PVC and HoS are receptive to feedback and make changes when needed. Staff also appreciate the collegial and friendly atmosphere at Massey and feel fortunate to have supportive supervisors who they can communicate with freely. The official and legally correct communication style of the university is also seen as a positive.”

The neutral response states, “There is open and honest two-way communication among staff within schools and between colleagues. However, there is a lack of transparency in leadership decision-making and communication from senior leadership to staff. Some staff feel that their concerns are not listened to and that there is a level of distrust among staff about messages coming from senior leadership.” 

Again, both of these responses are reflective of what the overarching prompt was about, perceptions about two-way communication in the organizational practices of the University. Unlike what the FSU makes the responses to look like, the qualitative comments across the spectrum reflect the objective of the prompt, to gauge staff perceptions about two-way communication in the management of the University.

When one picks qualitative comments for analyses, there are going to be a wide range of responses that capture diverse opinions. Considering the sentiment analysis of the generated narratives in response to the prompt, it is worth noting that 5% of staff offer positive responses, 29% offer neutral responses, and 66% offer negative responses. What this does point to is the opportunity to grow two-way communication across the layers of decision-making in the University. The sharing of the PULSE survey report itself, including the range of responses is an exemplar of transparency, a critical step toward building two-way communication. Moreover, the survey itself is part of a process that can work toward building and growing organizational culture.

One might ask, how would I personally respond to the item? I have access to this survey and to diverse platforms to communicate my views on this issue of organizational communication and will certainly not be turning to the FSU to communicate my perception. 

What the prompt and the responses to it however don’t capture is academic freedom. There is no evidence to support FSU’s mischievous framing “How do academics progress knowledge in an environment that doesn’t welcome debate and dissenting ideas?” The prompt that generated the responses had nothing to do with academic freedom. Broadly, the PULSE survey actually is not designed to evaluate the space for dissenting (academic) ideas. It is not an academic freedom survey. In fact, when you look at the entirety of the PULSE survey, you recognize that the survey is not designed to evaluate the climate of the University around academic freedom, the freedom to teach and research ideas in one’s area of expertise. That would be an important survey to have on hand, but this isn’t it. 

Why then does the FSU construct this slippage between organizational climate and academic freedom? It is my sense that this slippage from staff response to questions of organizational communication and processes to academic freedom is part of a broader ideological agenda of the FSU around creating a moral panic around academic freedom, decolonization and Te Tiriti.

As I have noted in the past, when it comes to academic freedom, when my academic freedom has been targeted, initially by Hindutva extremists, the FSU was absent. Not only did it not have any public statements to make around the organized campaign targeting my academic freedom, it also went ahead to platform one of the Hindutva propagandists who also appeared on Counterspin, and had organized a campaign targeting my job at the University. I will also note here that when I had publicly noted this strategic absence of the FSU, one of its propagandists had suggested I was lying although they couldn’t offer any evidence of FSU offering support for my academic freedom.

More recently, in the context of my critiques of Zionist settler colonialism and the ongoing genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza, far-right Zionist infrastructures in Aotearoa have targeted my academic freedom based on planted misinformation. This campaign is part of a broader campaign in Aotearoa launched by Far-Right Zionists targeting academic voices critical of Israel. Two of these Zionist creators and disseminators of disinformation sit on or have sat on the Board of the FSU (The exhibit below shows one of the posts by David Cumin, based on misinformation about the claim I made and that I have deleted a blog post, which I never did. See here). One of these Zionist propagandists targeted my job at Massey University, tagging the University and sought to get me fired. 

In the face of public criticism that noted the hypocrisy of the FSU, the propagandist then peddled the same misinformation in an email sent out from the FSU email address to the FSU listserv. This resulted in increased hate and trolling that I received, including hate messages left on my official email and phone threatening to send me back to ‘wherever I came from.” Now these are actual examples of threats to academic freedom, and they originate from within the infrastructures of the FSU.

I will wrap up by making a critical observation, that in the face of the threats to my academic freedom, including in instances of foreign interference, my employer, Massey University Te Kunenga ki Purehuroha, has stood firm and stood tall by me. This public support by the University and its senior leaders has meant that the University has become a source of further aggravated attacks from the Far-Right on its institutional structure and processes. It has offered the necessary critical support, the support with security, and the support with care, including Senior Leadership calling up on me to check how I am doing. In the face of the threats to my academic freedom that came directly from the networks of the FSU, the fear that this campaign induced in me around my safety and public scholarship, my employer has stood by me. I would any day take the commitments and negotiations of the University I work in around questions of academic freedom seriously than I would an astroturf organization seeking to insert a wedge around academic freedom to serve its ideological agenda of dismantling the critical decolonization work much needed in our Universities in Aotearoa and globally. 

The work of decolonization must go on.

Disrupting and Consolidating Communication Research: Applying Communication Theory to Practice

June 12-June 16, 2025

Massey University, Palmerston North, Aotearoa New Zealand

Oceania Hub: Aotearoa New Zealand

Hosted by:

Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE)

Communication and Media Studies at Massey University

Organizers: Debalina Dutta, Sy Taffel, Sean Phelan, & Mohan Dutta

Call for Submissions Due Date: March 7, 2025, 11:59 pm NZST

The Oceania Hub of the International Communication Association (ICA) 2025 conference, hosted at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University in Aotearoa New Zealand, explores questions surrounding disrupting Communication Research through the lens of Te Tiriti and Social Justice. Drawing on communication scholarship organized around the various registers of social justice, the Hub examines the intersections of communication theorizing and practice, mobilized toward disruptions and consolidation. The hub will be held in hybrid form, with both in-person and virtual sessions. Selected panels, papers, and interventions will be considered for waiver of conference registration fees.

We invite disciplinary and interdisciplinary submissions and multimedia communication interventions (video stories, film, performances, art forms, photographic images, sound productions) from the broader Asia-Pacific, focusing on the representation of the scholarship of communication practice from the Islands of the Pacific. The salience of Pacific participation is constituted around the global sustainability challenges of climate change, rising water levels, extreme inequality etc. We see the hub as offering an opening for disrupting what counts as communication scholarship through the engagement with practices of communication for social change.

The ICA Regional Hub at CARE will comprise a one-day hybrid workshop on “Connecting theory and practice as disruptions.” The workshop will bring in scholars from across the Asia-Pacific in both virtual and face-to-face sessions, focusing on key questions exploring the intersections of theory and practice in the context of addressing complex global challenges at a time when reactionary forces are on the rise. Aligned with the ICA 2025 conference theme of “Disrupting and Consolidating Communication Research,” the workshop will center the questions of disruptions from the context of the Pacific, anchoring the conversations in the struggles for justice and/or sustainability among others in communities across the Pacific. Sessions will connect with local organizers and activists in generating conversations on key questions on decolonizing knowledge. Centering the principles of Kaupapa Māori and indigenous methods across Asia and the Pacific, the workshop will explore the role of community as an organizing space for building knowledge.

The Hub will operate in a hybrid model, with face-to-face participation complementing virtual participation. We welcome paper or panel submissions on the following topics and beyond:

  • The futures of struggles around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
  • Theorizing communication applications
  • Decolonizing communication scholarship
  • Sustainable communicative futures
  • Science communication futures
  • ‘Disruptive innovation’ and social justice
  • AI and/as disruption
  • Disruptive alternatives to corporate platforms and infrastructures
  • Indigenous data sovereignty
  • Internationalization of the culture wars
  • Communication theory and mutant neoliberalism
  • The normalization of reactionary politics
  • Cultures of political resistance
  • Health communication and social determinants
  • Climate justice
  • Communication theory, transdisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity
  • Media cultures and ecologies
  • Imperialism, geopolitics and multipolarity
  • Critical development communication

We extend a special invitation to postgraduate students, activists and scholars from the Global South, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+ and those living with disabilities.

We invite submissions from the region addressing the theme “Disrupting and consolidating Communication Research.” The submissions can take the form of academic papers as well as multimedia forms beyond the text such as photos, audio, video stories, film, performance etc.

Please submit a title and an abstract no longer than 250 words. If you are submitting a multimedia intervention, please describe the interventions in the abstract. Please email your submission to Debalina Dutta at D.Dutta@massey.ac.nz by March 7, 2025, 11:59 pm NZST.

Professor Mohan Dutta receives 2024 Global Communication Award

Professor Dutta has been recognised for his pioneering work in de-westernising communication research and promoting social justice through community-led initiatives.

Professor Mohan Dutta.

Professor Mohan Dutta, Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication and Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University has been named as the winner of the 2024 Global Communication Award from the National Communication Association (NCA).

The Global Communication Award recognises distinguished communication scholarship that de-westernises ways of knowing and doing, focuses on regions, communities, or spaces outside of the United States (US) and Europe, integrates and cites international and global scholars, theories, approaches and/or methodologies in their scholarship and amplifies the global ecologies of knowledges.

Through his scholarship spanning three decades, Professor Dutta has created new openings for communication research and theory of/from the Global South, decentring the North Atlantic dominance of communication studies. He developed the culture-centred approach as a communication theory for conceptualising the ways in which communities of the Global South have been historically marginalised by the intertwined processes of colonialism, racial capitalism and imperialism.

His research programme, created in partnership with communities struggling against these marginalising forces, seeks to build voice infrastructures for community participation and decision-making in struggles for just futures. The academic-community partnerships he has created and sustained across the globe foster spaces for mobilising for social change.

From partnering with Adivasi (Indigenous) communities in Eastern India to build Indigenous-led community education programmes and cultural resources, to partnering with youth in the US Midwest to co-design an anti-tobacco advertising campaign and partnering with communities in Highbury and Feilding in Aotearoa New Zealand in co-creating community-owned food systems, violence prevention programmes and communication advocacy campaigns, the impulse of Professor Dutta’s work is rooted in securing justice.

The award citation states, “Dr Dutta evinces a deep commitment to social justice as a transnational project and has assiduously worked to forge ethical ties across different geopolitical terrains. Thus, Dr Dutta’s work continues to inspire scholars from marginalised communities, exemplifying the qualities of this award.”

An image excerpt from the IChooseHighbury campaign co-created by the Highbury Advisory Rōpū, built by tangata whenua community researchers at CARE in partnership with the community in Highbury.

Spanning 17 countries and four continents, the scope of Professor Dutta’s research and leadership, evidenced in his directorship of CARE, fosters the communication capacities of communities experiencing systemic disenfranchisement. Across local, national, regional and global spaces, the work of CARE builds sustainable linkages and connections among struggles for justice. The impact of Professor Dutta’s scholarship is evident in the power of community-led advocacy in influencing policies addressing social injustices. The community-led research collaborations he has built have shaped a wide array of community development projects, including community-owned food systems, hospitals, Indigenous cultural resources, educational infrastructures, systems for clean drinking water and community- and worker-owned advocacy and activist campaigns.

Professor Dutta says the award is a recognition of the global impact of the world-class research being carried out at CARE.

“It’s a collective of researchers, community organisers, advocates, activists and civil society organisations that actually carry out the work in community. The steadfast support of Massey University fuels our research programme.”

Since its relocation to New Zealand in 2018, CARE has carried out over 50 community-led social change projects addressing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) around no poverty, good health and wellbeing, reduced inequalities, climate action, zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, sustainable cities and communities, peace, justice and strong institutions and partnerships for the goals.

The most recent scholarship of CARE, on challenging Islamophobia, builds partnerships with communities and civil society organisations in mapping online and offline Islamophobia, developing community-led culture-centred digital literacy programmes challenging Islamophobia and strengthening community capacities in securing peace. White papers and policy briefs derived from the research have played critical roles in shaping public policies around social cohesion and anti-racism.

The activist-in-residence programme, white papers and community and public dialogues offer templates for community-engaged scholarship with global reach. In addition, CARE regularly hosts international researchers, community organisers, civil society organisations and students from across the globe who are interested in learning about the culture-centred approach to social change. So far, it has trained over 100 researchers, community organisers and peer leaders on the principles and methods of the culture-centred approach. A documentary featuring the work of CARE is available here.

The international reach of Professor Dutta’s mentorship has been recognised with the Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award and the NCA Health Communication Division’s award for outstanding contributions to promoting equity and inclusion. He also received the NCA Presidential citation for his contributions to de-centring the whiteness of the discipline through his public scholarship and activism.

Professor Dutta’s scholarship has also been recognised with the prestigious Charles H. Woolbert Research Award, the NCA’s Golden Anniversary Monograph AwardApplied Communication Award, the Bridge Award for Excellence in Connecting Crisis and Risk Communication Research and the International Communication Association’s Applied Public Policy Communication Researcher Award.

He is a Distinguished Scholar of the NCA and Fellow of the ICA.

About the National Communication Association (NCA)

The NCA advances communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific and aesthetic inquiry. The NCA serves the scholars, teachers and practitioners who are its members by enabling and supporting their professional interests in research and teaching.

Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, the NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems. The NCA supports inclusiveness and diversity among their faculties, within their membership, in the workplace and in the classroom, and supports and promotes policies that fairly encourage this diversity and inclusion.

NCA’s annual awards will be bestowed on several distinguished members at the NCA 110th Annual Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. Below is the list of those who will be honored at the awards presentation.

2024 National Award Winners


#ProfessorMohanDutta #GlobalCommunicationAward #NCA #CAREMassey #MasseyUniversity #CARECCA #CommunicationScholarship #DeWesternization #GlobalSouth #SocialJustice #CommunityEngagement #CARE #MasseyUniversity #CulturalCenteredApproach #VoiceInfrastructures #CommunityPartnerships #SocialChange #UNSDGs #Islamophobia #PublicScholarship #EquityAndInclusion #AcademicFreedom #CommunicationResearch #GlobalImpact

Source: Massey News- Professor Mohan Dutta receives 2024 Global Communication Award – Massey University & NCA

The Fourth Lecture: Beyond Binary Thinking in Applied Communication Research with Professor Debbie S. Dougherty | University of Missouri

CARE | Future Directions Of Applied Communication Research Lecture Series

Lecture 4 | Beyond Binary Thinking in Applied Communication Research

Date: Thursday, October 10, 2024
Time: 10 AM NZDT
Location: LIVE ON Facebook & YouTube via Zoom

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/2552960281564393

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/jJYA9Ap3amY

About the Speaker:

 Debbie S. Dougherty (Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2000) is Professor of Communication at University of Missouri. Her research focuses on power and organizing, particularly as it relates to sexual harassment, social class, and emotions. with publications in places such as Harvard Business Review, Human Relations, Journal of CommunicationHuman Communication ResearchCommunication Monographs, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Applied Communication Research, and Sex Roles.

She has also provided organizational communication training and development in a number of organizations and has been extensively utilized as a resource for news sources such as the New York Times, Newsweek, Forbes, and the Oprah Magazine.

Prof. Dougherty has received a number of awards, including the Organizational Communication Book of the Year and Textbook of the YearNCA Applied Communication Scholar Award, The Jack Kay Award for Engaged Research, the Management Communication Quarterly Article of the Year Award, the Norman K. Denzin Qualitative Research Award, the Excellence in Education Award, and the Gold Chalk Award for graduate student mentoring.   

#CAREMassey #CARECCA #CARELectureSeries #MasseyUniversity #ClemsonUniversity #AppliedCommunication #DebbieSDougherty #BinaryThinking #CommunicationResearch

Professor Mohan J Dutta features on Ayaan Institute’s podcast on Global Hindutva: Communicative Strategies and Impact on Leicester Disorder 2022

CARE: Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation is excited to share the podcast by Prof. Mohan Dutta, Massey University with Mr Jahangir Mohammed, Ayaan Institute on #GlobalHindutva

The latest Ayaan Institute podcast episode features an insightful discussion with Professor Mohan J Dutta from Massey University. Dive into his groundbreaking research on Global Hindutva and its impact on the #Leicester disorder in September 2022. This episode also explores the connections between #Hindutva, far-right narratives, and violence.

This podcast was streamed LIVE and recorded on 2nd October.

Don’t miss out! Watch now: https://www.youtube.com/live/5TPK7dDs_Lk

Read more about Ayaan Institute here: http://www.ayaaninstitute.com/

CARE | Future Directions Of Applied Communication Research Lecture Series | Before Crisis: The Ongoing Process of Instructing and Engaging Publics

The Third Lecture

Lecture 3 | Before Crisis: The Ongoing Process of Instructing and Engaging Publics

Before Crisis: The Ongoing Process of Instructing and Engaging Publics with Prof. Deanna Sellnow & Prof. Timothy Sellnow | Clemson University

Date: Tuesday, October 1st, 2024
Time: 10 AM NZDT
Location: LIVE ON Facebook & YouTube via Zoom

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/891598706215859

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO1M61EPgY8

Brief description of the lecture:

We argue that engaging diverse publics in ongoing instructional communication is critical to effectively managing risks, mitigating harms, and responding to crises in a complex global risk society. Communication theory becomes meaningful for achieving these goals only when it is applied directly to and with the risk-bearers it is intended to serve.  Moreover, engaging stakeholders in the co-construction of meaning and decision-making inherent in effective instructional communication must be ongoing. In this presentation, we explore strategies for doing so effectively using the IDEA model for effective instructional risk and crisis communication as a framework.

About the Speakers:

Prof. Deanna D. Sellnow, Ph.D., Clemson University

Deanna D. Sellnow (Ph.D.) is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Clemson University. Dr. Sellnow’s research focuses on strategic instructional communication in the contexts of health, risk, safety, and crisis communication (e.g., natural disasters, health, food safety, pandemics, biosecurity, terrorism, biotechnology). She has conducted funded research for the United States Geological Survey (USGS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), United States Department of Education (DOE), United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and the German Research Foundation (DFG). She is former President of the Central States Communication Association where she was inducted into the Fall of Fame in 2018. She currently serves as the founding Executive Director of the International Crisis and Risk Communication Association (ICRCA) and has been co-host of the International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference (ICRCC) since 2016.  She is also past editor of the Journal of Communication Pedagogy, Communication Teacher, and the Basic Communication Course Annual. She has authored or co-authored numerous books, book chapters, and refereed national and international journal articles. She has conducted and/or presented research in a variety of countries around the world. Her most recent book, co-authored with Dr. Timothy Sellnow, is Before Crisis: The Practice of Effective Risk Communication.

Prof. Timothy L. Sellnow, Ph.D., Clemson University

Timothy L. Sellnow is a professor of communication at Clemson University. His research focuses on risk and crisis communication. He has conducted funded research for the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Geological Survey, and the World Health Organization. He has also served in an advisory role for the National Academy of Sciences, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the International Food and Information Council, and the Food and Drug Administration. He is past winner of the National Communication Association’s Gerald Phillips Award for Distinguished Applied Communication Scholarship and past editor or Journal of Applied Communication Research. He has co-authored seven books on risk and crisis communication and has published many refereed journal articles. His most recent book, co-authored with Dr. Deanna Sellnow, is Before Crisis: Strategies for Effective Risk Communication.

#CAREMassey #CARECCA #CARELectureSeries #MasseyUniversity #ClemsonUniversity #AppliedCommunication #DeannaSellnow #TimothySellnow #RiskCommunication #CrisisManagement #InstructionalCommunication #IDEAModel #PublicEngagement #CommunicationResearch

Opinion: The Free Speech Union: Leaping from climate surveys to moral panic

Wednesday 18 September 2024 by Professor Mohan Dutta

Photo credit: Skitterphoto via Pixabay.

The trope of academic freedom in danger is a critical resource in the organised attack of the far-right on the modern university. One of the core techniques of the far-right in its efforts to destabilise academic institutions, is cook up a frenzy around free speech – intentionally conflating free speech issues with academic freedom. As an exemplar of the communicative inversions performed by the far-right, the panic around academic freedom is actually a critical tool in catalysing attacks on the academic freedom of decolonising practices in the university environment. What the far-right, and the underlying infrastructure of white supremacy is triggered by, is that universities are slowly transforming, starting to acknowledge that centuries of colonial epistemic violence have erased the knowledge infrastructures of colonised peoples.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, as I have demonstrated in my analyses, the Free Speech Union uses ideologically motivated faulty surveys to create panic around academic freedom. With a fundamentally incorrect understanding of academic freedom (the freedom of academics to teach and publish in their areas of expertise) that conflates it with free speech, the Union constructs its propaganda around specific ideological issues (Te Tiriti o Waitangi, gender justice, and so on) which are at the heart of the far- right’s culture war propaganda in Aotearoa.

In its most recent campaign, the Free Speech Union has turned to releasing leaked climate surveys to construct the argument that academic freedom is under threat in Aotearoa. Deploying the tactical tool of leaks, it builds an affective register around academic climates, suggesting these environments are threatening academic freedom.

In August, the Free Speech Union targeted the Law School at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), placing its propaganda around a leaked climate survey (to David Farrar, yes, the same David Farrar that runs the debunked Free Speech Union survey on academic freedom) that suggested faculty dissatisfaction. Commenting on the selective excerpts from the survey published on David Farrar’s blog, noted Jonathan Ayling, the Chief Executive of the Union:

“Academics are being criticised and punished for speaking out, causing them and others to resort to self-censorship. Again, results from an internal law school survey displayed very low levels of satisfaction. This included 30% claiming they feel uncomfortable reporting inappropriate behaviour and more than one-in-three respondents experiencing bullying in the past six months.”

Mr Ayling’s blog then reports on a letter sent out to the Minister of Education and the AUT Vice-Chancellor. When you look closely at the items shared on Mr Farrar’s blog however, there is not a single reported item on the blog that substantiates the claim “academics are being criticised and punished for speaking out.” You also won’t find an item that actually measures self-censorship.

In other words, the frame around threat to academic freedom that is part of the moral panic crafted by the Free Speech Union in its press release and the letter to the Minister of Education is not substantiated empirically. There is no evidence of academics being punished for speaking out, as Mr Ayling claims.

Professor Mohan Dutta.

Mr Farrar’s blog embellishes the ideological reading of the survey with leaked emails and speculations. The survey creates the opening for attacking the Dean of Law at AUT who had spoken out against the attack on the teaching of Tikanga Māori. Writes Mr Farrar: “Now readers will recall that the Dean of Law is Khylee Quince and she attracted a lot of publicity when she called a senior KC a racist dinosaur who should go off and die in the corner.” The blog wraps up by further constructing the Dean as threat to academic freedom:

“As you can see the results for the Law Faculty are much much lower than AUT as a whole. So this would suggest the major issue is not the central administration, but the faculty management itself. I am told by sources that everyone knows what the major problem is, but people are too scared to say so.”

Note here the slippage from the report of a leaked climate survey to hearsay – the architecture of gossip in: “everyone knows what the major problem is, but people are too scared to say so.”

It is worth noting the targeting of the AUT Dean of Law, Māori academic Khylee Quince, is part of a broader campaign targeting senior Māori academics (often women) who have spoken out publicly against the white supremacist structures that make up universities in settler colonial Aotearoa New Zealand, and their organised campaigns directed at erasing the decolonising registers that have been built through decades of struggle. The ideologically motivated campaign around academic freedom mobilised by Mr Farrar and Free Speech Union works on slippages to construct the narrative of academic freedom under threat. Implicit in this, is the positioning of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a threat to academic freedom in Aotearoa.

Indeed, the academic climate of settler colonial universities, embedded in whiteness and mobilised to uphold white supremacy, has worked historically to erase decolonising registers of knowledge generation. Prevailing norms of whiteness have devalued and undermined Indigenous knowledge claims, often working aggressively to silence decolonising scholarship. The voices of Indigenous and postcolonial academics have historically been silenced, with the academic freedom to do decolonising scholarship severely constrained by the norms of whiteness, upheld by notions of civility and norms of communication within white academic structures.

As universities in Aotearoa New Zealand, as with universities across settler colonial spaces globally, have started their decolonising journeys around reconciliation and recognition of Indigenous rights, the far-right white supremacist campaign seeking to silence these efforts has worked incessantly to construct decolonisation as a threat to academic freedom. The implicit and explicit targeting of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the positioning of Te Tiriti in opposition to academic freedom must be read within the broader architecture of the global proliferation of white supremacist backlash against decolonisation. Any conversation on academic freedom must begin with the recognition that the far-right panic around academic freedom is a threat to the academic freedom of academics studying, teaching, researching and publicly engaging on decolonisation, postcolonial theory, critical race theory etc. It must also be noted that academics teaching and researching in these areas have historically faced diverse intersecting forms of marginalisation, harassment, and threats to their academic freedom.

Professor Mohan Dutta is Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication. He is the Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), developing culturally-centered, community-based projects of social change, advocacy, and activism that articulate health as a human right. He is a member of the board of the International Communication Association.

Article Source: Massey News

URL: https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/news/opinion-the-free-speech-union-leaping-from-climate-surveys-to-moral-panic/

CARE | Future Directions Of Applied Communication Research Lecture Series | Leveraging Network Science to Address Grand Societal Challenges

The Second Lecture:

Leveraging Network Science to Address Grand Societal Challenges with Professor Noshir Contractor, Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioural Sciences, Northwestern University.

This second lecture in the Future Directions of Applied Communication Research Lecture Series is from Professor Noshir Contractor from Northwestern University. It centres around network science and how it can support applied communication scholarship.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1548409152440542

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbyRrGhqcTc

Noshir Contractor is the Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the McCormick School of Engineering, the School of Communication and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He investigates how social and knowledge networks form and perform. He is the former President of the International Communication Association. He is also a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association and a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Network Science Society, and the International Communication Association. He received the Lifetime Service Award from the Communication, Digital Technology, & Organization Division of the Academy of Management. Additionally, he received the Simmel Award from the International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA). He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. He has a Ph.D. from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California.

#NetworkSCience #SocietalChallenges #NoshirContractor #NorthwesternUniversity #AppliedCommunicationResearch #CARELectureSeries #CARECCA #CAREMassey #MasseyUni #Aotearoa #NewZealand

Future Directions of Applied Communication Research Lecture Series | Strategies for Conducting Applied Communication Research that Can Make a Difference

Lecture Topic: Strategies for Conducting Applied Communication Research that Can Make a Difference with Distinguished Professor Gary Kreps, George Mason University

Tuesday, 3rd September 2024 @ 10 am NZST on Facebook LIVE & YouTube LIVE!  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/RMBrKaZwjuCLG5XZ/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/H-KCN0hnwuU

About the Lecturer: Prof. Gary Kreps is completing his 20th year on the faculty at George Mason University, where he currently serves as a Distinguished University Professor of Communication and Founding Director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication.   Prof. Gary teaches courses concerning Communication Research, Health Communication, Risk Communication, Interpersonal Communication, Organizational Communication, Consumer-Provider Health Communication, Health Communication Campaigns, and Digital Communication.  

Prior to joining the faculty at Mason, he had the pleasure of serving as the Founding Chief of the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NIH), where he planned, developed, and coordinated major new national research and outreach initiatives concerning risk communication, health promotion, behavior change, technology development, and information dissemination to promote effective cancer prevention, screening, control, care, and survivorship.

Prof. Gary also served as the Founding Dean of the School of Communication at Hofstra University, Executive Director of the Greenspun School of Communication at UNLV, and in faculty and administrative roles at Northern Illinois, Rutgers, Indiana, and Purdue Universities.  

Read more here

Read more about the CARE Lecture Series:

https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/news/care-to-host-renowned-academics-in-its-applied-communication-lecture-series/

#AppliedCommunicationResearch #CARELectureSeries #CommunicationResearch #GaryKreps #CAREMassey #MasseyUni #GeorgeMasonUniversity #CARECCA #Aotearoa #NewZealand

Prof. Mohan Dutta ranked in the Top 10 scholars globally for his research in Cultural Studies

The Center for Culture-centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) congratulates Professor Mohan Dutta for being ranked among the Top 0.5% of all scholars worldwide by ScholarGPS.

ScholarGPS “provides rankings of individuals and institutions Overall (in all Fields) in 14 broad Fields and in 350,000+ Specialities.

Professor Dutta is ranked 12 worldwide in his field of Journalism for his research accomplishments over the prior 5 Years and is ranked 30 worldwide in Journalism in the Lifetime.

In his specialisation area of Cultural Studies, he is ranked  number 7 worldwide for prior 5 Years. During the same period, he is ranked 4 worldwide for the quality of his scholarship. He is ranked 17 in the area of Cultural Change.

For his accomplishments in the area of Social Change, he is ranked 35 worldwide in the Lifetime. He is ranked 18 worldwide over the prior 5 Years for his productivity in the scholarship of Social Change, and 24 for his productivity in area over Lifetime.