Column Stuff-up – defending science is challenging nowadays but professors were right about Wiles’ allegation

The Dominion-Post – without any hint of a blush – proclaimed in a Page 3 headline today:  Mauri restored to Parliament grounds. 

Really? We hope to see the photographs.

On the next page, a report is headlined ”Media Council upholds professors’ complaint”.

This tells readers “a most serious allegation” (and a baseless one) had been made against six University of Auckland professors by associate professor Siouxsie Wiles.  This had struck at the heart of academic freedom by asserting the professors were trying to stifle opposing views using lawyers’ threats and required immediate public correction.

The article beneath the Page 3 headline says work to rebuild Parliament grounds is starting after the occupation by protesters.

Reporter Glenn McConnell describes a procession and a ceremony which involved poi, taiaha and karakia and the turning of soil

“… to open Papatūānuku and restore mauri to the grounds”.

The report explains that mauri is the concept of a life force, or energy of a person or place, in te ao Maori.

It does not explain Papatūānuku, or mother earth:

“In Māori tradition, Papatūānuku is the land. She is a mother earth figure who gives birth to all things, including people. Trees, birds and people are born from the land, which then nourishes them. Some traditions say that the land first emerged from under water.”

This suggests it is a Maori form of creationism or intelligent design.

Creationism and intelligent design are championed by opponents of evolution and science, although Scientific American has reported their arguments don’t hold up

• Despite definitive legal cases that have established the unconstitutionality of teaching intelligent design or creationist ideology in science class, the theory of evolution remains consistently under attack.
• Creationist arguments are notoriously errant or based on a misunderstanding of evolutionary science and evidence.
• Hundreds of studies verify the facts of evolution, at both the microevolutionary and macroevolutionary scale—from the origin of new traits and new species to the underpinnings of the complexity we see in life and the statistical probability of such complexity arising.

But matauranga Maori and the concept of mauri are treated with greater respect in this country.

A Green Paper was published last year to trigger an open and wide-ranging consultation on a range of issues facing this country’s research, science and innovation system.

The Future Pathways programme aims to better understand and resolve several issues and create a research, science and innovation system that continues to be critical to New Zealand’s success.

These issues include:

“Exploring how the research system can best honour Te Tiriti obligations and opportunities, give life to Māori research aspirations and enable mātauranga Māori.”

University of Auckland professors who have gone out to bat for science face a formidable challenge, in this climate of ideas, but they have scored a victory in the form of the Media Council judgement reported on Page 4.

The council has ruled that a comment published by Stuff in an opinion column on December 20 last year was inaccurate and the delay in publishing a correction unacceptable.

The column was headlined Academics: Use your mana to aid colleagues, not fight them.

This was a contribution to the ongoing debate that followed “the seven professors” letter to NZ Listener in July 2021, which expressed their views on the value of mātauranga Māori​ being included in the science school curriculum.

The column included this comment:

“The reason I got involved is because those professors and fellows have influence and power over people’s careers. Astonishingly, some are now intimidating junior colleagues with lawyer’s letters.”

Professors Kendall Clements, Elizabeth Rata, Doug Elliffe, Garth Cooper, Robert Nola and John Werry advised Stuff that none of them had sent lawyer’s letters to junior colleagues and asked for the unsubstantiated statement to be withdrawn. (One of the seven signatories to the Listener letter, Professor Michael Corballis, had since died).

The “lawyer’s letters” mentioned in the column had been sent by the University of Auckland as part of its process of responding to personal information requests under the Privacy Act by two of the professors and they had nothing to do with how the university carried out this statutory process.

The council has found that the statement in the article about the professors intimidating junior colleagues with lawyer’s letters was inaccurate and should not have been made.

From December 31 to January 5 Stuff made two clarifications but, despite two complaints, the first sent on December 23, the inaccurate statement remained on Stuff from December 20 to January 5.

Dom-Post readers are steered to the Media Council site to check out the ruling (www.mediacouncil.org.nz) rather than directly to the ruling (HERE).

A more glaring feature of the newspaper’s report is its omission of the name of the writer of the offending column.

The Media Council is not so coy. The writer is named (six times) as Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles.

The council ruling gives us a better feel for the background:

“In July 2021 a letter from seven New Zealand academics was published in the New Zealand Listener magazine. The letter questioned the proposed equal treatment of mātauranga Māori (indigenous knowledge) and science, especially in the school curriculum.

“A vigorous public debate followed, about the issues raised in what was sometimes referred to as the ‘seven professors’ or ‘Listener seven’ letter. Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles and others challenged the views of the seven professors and supported a role for mātauranga Māori in the science school curriculum and more widely. Complaints about the seven professors’ letter were received by the Royal Society Te Apārangi; several of the seven are fellows of the Academy arm of the Royal Society and subject to its code of conduct.  An investigation into the complaints was launched by the Royal Society. This appeared to spark international coverage of the debate late in 2021, especially in the UK. Some reports are said to have suggested Ms Wiles was “attacking” or “cancelling” university colleagues.

“On 20 December 2021 Stuff published an opinion article by Ms Wiles entitled Academics: Use your mana to aid colleagues, not fight them. The article was a contribution to the ongoing debate and responded to the reported UK media criticisms of her position in challenging the views of the seven professors about the value of mātauranga Māori.”

The complaint was generated by the “allegation” in Wiles’ opinion column which said:

“The reason I got involved is because those professors and fellows have influence and power over people’s careers. Astonishingly, some are now intimidating junior colleagues with lawyer’s letters.”

Professor Rata, in a complaint to Stuff on December 23 on behalf of the six professors, said none had sent lawyer’s letters to junior colleagues.  She asked Stuff to name anyone who had sent such letters and sought a ‘fair deal’ from Stuff, given that the incorrect claim “sullies our reputations”.

Stuff added a clarification footnote to the article at 5pm on December 31 – eight days later:

“The ‘lawyer’s letters referred to in this article were sent by the University of Auckland, following Privacy Act requests from two of the ‘Listener Seven’”.

On January 4 Professor Clements took the lead in advising Stuff the clarification did not adequately correct the “incorrect and defamatory statement” or the impression that the professors had sent lawyer’s letters to junior colleagues.

He said it now appeared the lawyer’s letters were sent by the University of Auckland as part of its process of responding to personal information requests under the Privacy Act by two of the professors. But:

“We had nothing to do with how the university carries out this statutory process.”

Professor Clements sought a suitably prominent retraction and explanation that the lawyer’s letters were from the University, and NOT from the signatories to the Listener letter about junior colleagues being intimidated with lawyers’ letters

The Media Council records the Stuff responses to the complaints and its confidence that any confusion had been cleared up.

In its decision, the council notes

“…that none of the major academic participants appear to have called for censorship or suppression of others’ views.  The seven professors’ letter has sparked strong debate on a matter of high public importance, the place and value of mātauranga Māori in science. Stuff helped to inform and balance this important public debate by publishing Associate Professor Wiles’ article.”

But the complaint to the Media Council was not about this important issue of scientific principle.

“It is rather about a matter of Stuff’s compliance with Media Council Principles, and the handling of the complaint by Stuff. Our findings are confined to these aspects and do not attempt to deal with the issue of mātauranga Māori and science, which would in any event be beyond the Council’s mandate.”

Principle 1 says:

“Publications should be bound at all times by accuracy, fairness and balance, and should not deliberately mislead or misinform readers by commission or omission.”

Principle 4 says:

“Material facts on which an opinion is based should be accurate.”

The council agrees that the statement which triggered the complaint was inaccurate.

“It appears plain that none of the named Professors were involved in intimidating junior colleagues with lawyer’s letters.

”It is also of the view that this is a most serious allegation to make, striking at the heart of academic freedom by asserting that the Professors were trying to stifle opposing views using lawyers’ threats.  It required immediate public correction.”

As to the Stuff argument that dealing with the incident had taken place over the Christmas/New Year shutdown, the council says the 24-hour news cycle continued during the holiday period and the article was readily accessible on-line.

“The Council considers that publications need to be able to deal with complaints, and make corrections at any time, especially where a key factual error has been made. In this case the error was damaging to the complainants’ professional standing and reputation.”

The correction made on 31 December had been less than clear and could have been read to imply that the complainants were responsible for the lawyer’s letters, even if sent by the university.

“It should have said plainly that the statement in the article was wrong, and that the Professors did not send out such letters or ask for them to be sent”. 

Thus it was reasonable for Professor Clements and the other complainants to be dissatisfied with this explanation.

“A simple factual error had been made, Stuff was aware of that, and an unambiguous correction could and should have been made at that time (or earlier). “

Principle 4 also deals with accuracy – material facts on which an opinion is based should be accurate – and the council has ruled:

“A key material fact on which Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles’ opinion column was based was incorrect – ‘The reason I got involved is because…. some are now intimidating junior colleagues with lawyer’s letters’.

“The inaccurate statement remained on Stuff from 20 December to 5 January. This is in our view an unnecessarily long delay before making an unambiguous correction to an inaccurate and significantly damaging statement about the six complainants.”

The council further noted that the complaint could be upheld under Principle 12, relating to failure to adequately correct, even though the complainants did not cite this ground for their complaint. It overlooked this procedural issue in the light of the substantive upholds on Principles 1 and 4.

UPDATE: The report in the Dom-Post was a summary of the ruling prepared by the Media Council.  Because the complaint was against Stuff, and answered to by Stuff, the council reasoned it was unnecessary to name Associate Professor Wiles in the brief version.