Chairman of the day, Adriaan den Dulk introduced proceedings 
by referencing US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms Speech in which he presented his reasons for American involvement, making the case for helping Great Britain that the United States was fighting for the universal freedoms that all people possessed.
The Four Freedoms espoused being: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. He went on to state that according to Fukuyama identity politics (a desire for recognition and the politics of resentment), is a threat to liberalism because it cannot be satisfied by economic or procedural reforms. Rather, political leaders on either side of the political spectrum, have mobilised followers around the idea that their dignity has been affronted and must be restored.
This desire for respect by those who are usually defined in narrow identity terms, previously not represented in main-stream political activity, has spread to universities where concepts such as safe spaces, micro-aggressions, de-platforming and trigger warnings proliferate – what British author and commentator, Stephen Fry refers to as “deep infantilism" with people who "can't bear complexity".
This has taken a further turn, in an assault on actual academic freedom, by attacking those dissenting voices that do not reflect contemporary orthodoxies, a serious turn of events that has resulted in the sacking of a tenured professor at an Australian university.
Stuart Wood QC AM presented an overview of the recent case where the Federal Court had found that James Cook University's decision to dismiss the former head of its physics department, Professor Peter Ridd, along with 17 misconduct findings and multiple censures, confidentiality, speech and "no satire" directions were "all unlawful".
It had been alleged that Professor Ridd had breached the universities’ code of conduct by denigrating the university and his colleagues and by failing to maintain confidentiality or behave "in a way that upholds the integrity and good reputation of the university". At the heart of the issue was the belief by Professor Ridd that there was "almost no quality assurance" for "public good science" and that he had stated during a Sky News interview that "we can no longer trust" scientific organisations like the Australian Institute of Marine and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.
Stuart quoted from Judge Vasta’s judgement wherein he stated:
It was held that JCU contravened Professor Ridd's rights under the James Cook University Enterprise Agreement 2013 and acted outside its power in seeking to discipline him for breaching its unlawful directions.
Intellectual freedom includes the rights of staff to:
• Pursue critical and open inquiry;
• Participate in public debate and express opinions about issues and ideas related to their respective fields of competence;
• Express opinions about the operations of JCU and higher education policy more generally;
• Be eligible to participate in established decision-making structures and processes within JCU, subject to established selection procedures and criteria;
• Participate in professional and representative bodies, including unions and otherrepresentative bodies.
[1] Annual Message to Congress (State of the Union Address) on January 6, 1941
[3] Ridd v James Cook University [2019] FCCA 997 (16 April 2019)
[4] https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/documents/agreements/fwa/ae405417.pdf
