University of Canterbury Correct In Not Interfering with Student Comedy
26 August 2019
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Free Speech Coalition urges University of Canterbury to resist bullying calls to suppress student freedom of speech.
As an arm of the state, Canterbury is bound to uphold the freedom of speech assured by the NZ Bill of Rights Act. As a
university it must also comply with section 161(2)(a) of the Education Act, to allow students ‘to question and test
received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions.’”
“So it was reassuring to read of the university’s refusal to jump to the prune-faced demands that it suppress the
irreverence, and bad taste mockery that is a time-honoured celebration of student freedom of speech. We commend the
acting law school dean, Professor Elizabeth Toomey, for stating that “the university does 'not play to the role of
censor.' Given the cowardice displayed recently at some other universities, that showed courage."
"It appears possible the university pressed the students to apologise to a thin-skinned individual who was lampooned. He
appears to have played the victim card to derail what sounds like essentially political satire. But that does not
detract from the refusal to be panicked into condemning the students."
“As a lawyer I’m also reassured to know that young lawyers have not all become de facto priestlings, confined to pious
recitations of a new morality. We want lawyers to be brave gladiators for their clients, but too often the law
establishment now indulges the snowflakes who want to be protected from anything that offends them. Who’d want lawyers
who can’t take sick jokes or challenges to their orthodoxies."
Stephen Franks