University of Adelaide law professor Dr. Joanna Howe is taking her employer to the Fair Work Commission, seeking orders to stop bullying at work and requiring the university to exercise powers under its academic freedom policy to dismiss bad-faith complaints made against her and withdraw the imposition of corrective actions. “All I want is the freedom to do my job,” she posted on social media.
The university has launched six investigations into her work since November 2019 and cleared her of any breach every time. Those investigations have been prompted by her research into abortion and prostitution following complaints by activists, mostly from outside the university, who are opposed to her own pro-life activism.
Pro-life political party Family First’s national director Lyle Shelton writes that she is a “pro-life warrior” and “one of the leading lights in the movement to uphold the rights of unborn babies, and protect their mothers from abortion coercion, and harm.” He adds that she is being “persecuted by anti-life activists trying to have her sacked from her job.”
Professor Howe is a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate from Oxford University. She is considered one of Australia’s foremost experts in the field of labour and migration law and was appointed by the Albanese government as one of three “eminent persons” to lead a comprehensive review of Australia’s migration system. She serves on advisory bodies for the federal Minister for Immigration and the International Labor Organisation. She has five children and was named Family Voice Mother of the Year. She is also a Christian.
In posts on social media, she claimed the university’s approach to her research constituted a “violation of my academic freedom” given it had launched “relentless” investigations in response to “vexatious” complaints. “None of these complaints have come from my students based on what I am teaching. Nearly all of them are radical activists and organisations who want to silence my voice and get me sacked because they’re threatened by what I’m researching and what I have to say.”
“The idea of a university is based on the importance of academic freedom which they are violating because they are treating me differently to other university academics who do not publish in areas of controversy,” she told The Weekend Australian. “My freedom to pursue research and public advocacy critical of Australia’s extreme abortion laws that allow abortion up to birth and for any reason, is under threat by pro-abortion bullies who are weaponising the University’s complaints system against me and the decision of the University to side with them and subject me to repeated investigation.”
She asked on social media: “If radical left-wing activists can weaponise university complaints systems, then how is academic freedom protected? Academics like me, who question the orthodoxy of the radical left, are under constant scrutiny.”
After the latest investigation found she did not breach the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research she said the university ordered her to undertake a research integrity course to learn how not to do biased research, within 30 days.
Professor Howe has refused to complete the course, telling The Weekend Australian that: “By choosing to side with the bullies by continually subjecting me to constant investigation and constant scrutiny, they (the university) have failed to meet their obligations to me as a staff member.”
“I refuse to submit to ‘re-education’ because academic freedom should protect the rights of scholars from being constantly harassed by activists who disagree with their research,” the pro-life advocate declared.
Professor Howe revealed she has been subjected to online bullying, harassment, abuse and even physical threats because of her research, which she has promoted on social media. Two of the messages said: We have created a movement to have you held accountable for your misinformation. We are all emailing and complaining to Adelaide University and Say goodbye to your job at Adelaide Uni. A third accused the pro-life academic of abusing her position, to spread hate, under the guise of free speech. Not just anti-abortion, but your anti-LGBTQ comments. SHAME.
In response, Professor Howe stated: “Their only play is to shut me down, which says something about the weakness of their [pro-abortion] argument.”
In reference to her Fair Work Commission case she told Sky News: “I’m doing this not just to fight for my job. I’m doing this for our freedoms, for all Australians who are sick and tired of the bullying and the harassment of the radical left, who expect us all to comply with their Woke religion. We don’t live in a totalitarian state. We live in Australia. I am going to do everything I can to make sure that the University of Adelaide is built on academic freedom, because that’s a fundamental component of any democracy.”
Christian commentator Rod Lampard wrote in the Daily Declaration: “Her mistreatment is tantamount to Soviet-style intimidation and re-education. Dr. Howe faces a two-fold process aimed at cancelling her. First, exhaust the pro-life professor, and her resources. Second, force Adelaide University to fire her. If they ask questions, clear Dr. Howe’s name, and then reinstate the professor – rinse and repeat. Mass reporting is the ‘coordinated effort to abuse reporting systems’ in order to ‘incorrectly’ cancel Dr. Howe. The process, as they say, is indeed the punishment.”
