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Two thin-skinned academics, Siouxsie Wiles and Shaun Hendy, are suing their employer because they feel they weren’t protected by from push back over their Covid commentary:
High profile academics and Covid-19 commentators Shaun Hendy and Siouxsie Wiles say harassment towards them is escalating, and their employer the University of Auckland has not done enough to ensure their safety.
A recently released Employment Relations Authority determination says Hendy and Wiles brought separate but similar claims against the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Auckland.
Hendy and Wiles allege ongoing unjustified disadvantages at work arising from the university’s failure to appropriately address their safety concerns.
They also allege their employer has breached their academic staff collective agreement and good faith requirements including, among other things, responsive communication.
Stuff
These two clowns led the witch hunt against the seven professors who wrote the letter to the Listener on what qualifies as science, and have also attacked other academics whose work they disagree with. On top of that Wiles is a bully on Twitter, and now it appears that she has the thinnest skin of any hippo I’ve seen.
They say they are expected to provide public commentary as part of their jobs, and that this has become particularly relevant during the pandemic, because their experience is relevant to serious matters of public health and safety, the determination says.
The university says they are not “expected” or required to provide public commentary on Covid-19 as part of their employment.
It is bollocks that it is expected. Neither Hendy nor Wiles has experience or qualifications in pandemic management, vaccines or public health mitigation. It is unclear why the university would expect them to issue amateur commentary- except possibly to harvest Labour’s propensity to shower millions of taxpayer dollars on those who promote Labour narratives.
Hendy is a physicist and so any contribution he has on a pandemic, epidemiology or even microbiology is scant, to stay the least. Notwithstanding his woeful models that have proved to be fanciful in the extreme. He should be roundly criticised for those travesties of prognostications.
As for Wiles, her speciality is glowing plankton, and microbiology, so, again, not relevant. She is also a rank hypocrite, busted breaching level four rules and calling in favours from Bloomfield and Ardern to cover her tracks. The University of Auckland is not responsible for her sitting maskless on a beach over 5km from her home and her University friend going for a swim. She got a lot of pushback from that action alone.
If Hendy limited his public commentary to physics, and Wiles limited hers to laboratory microbiology, it seems unlikely that anybody would push back. Instead, they both seized the limelight on pandemic management with the support of media and according to their claim, also supported by the government and the university.
Hendy and Wiles do not believe that it is reasonably practicable for them to limit their public commentary on Covid-19. They say such commentary is a key element of their academic roles and they have been asked by the university and the Prime Minister’s Office to provide such commentary, it says.
Stuff
That is going to end up an own goal for Wiles, whose text messages between her and Ardern the Government is currently hiding. That statement makes all the text messages “official information“. I have therefore updated my complaint to The Ombudsman.
Courting public attention is a double-edged sword. These two misinforming numpties and their compliant media shills whine about being doxxed. But it’s all OK when they do it though.
“The university opposed the removal to the Employment Court.”
Stuff
Which merely shows you the level of self-imposed grandiosity these two have given themselves. They want to have their cake and eat it too!
They got involved with politics and politicians, on a direct channel first name basis too. They should be treated like any other political player.
Hendy and Wiles claim that the University “failed to protect them from abuse and harassment”. Surely the answer would have been simple, Universities like Auckland and Massey generally respond to threats of harassment by banning people “at threat of being harassed” from being allowed to speak at their venues.
“Exhibit A: your honour, details of how Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux were banned from speaking because harassment may have occurred if they did.”
“Exhibit B: your honour, details of how Speak up for Women were banned from speaking because there may have been harassment and threats of violence if they did”.
The precedent is surely clear by now. Hendy and Wiles should simply be banned from speaking if they keep inciting harassment and death threats against themselves. After all, think of Health and Safety.
Good luck arguing that you should have been banned in the first place Shaun and Siouxsie, you real deep-thinkers you.
But further examination of the issue highlights some other important information.
It’s all very strange given the pile-on Wiles orchestrated against the seven professors who signed the now notorious Listener letter. Wiles followed up her and Hendy’s open letter with a tweet:
She seems to be happy to dish it out (“harm and hurt”… “major problems with some of our colleagues”) but not take it.
Ironically, by taking Employment Court action she and Hendy are opening the door to even more criticism of themselves.
Also curious is this amendment made on December 31 to Wiles’ column from a few weeks ago, in which she claimed that the professors intimidated junior colleagues with lawyers’ letters“
“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.*
Stuff
The asterisk leads to a “clarification” at the foot of the column:
Clarification: The “lawyer’s letters” referred to in this article were sent by the University of Auckland, following a Privacy Act request from two of the so-called “Listener Seven”. (Amended Dec 31, 2021, 5 pm.)
In short, the professors didn’t send any lawyers’ letters to “junior colleagues” — the university did. So Wiles has told Stuff’s readers that the professors were “intimidating” juniors (which is worse than bullying — which, of course, has become a career-limiting accusation in recent times) yet it clearly wasn’t true.
So Wiles made an unfounded (and, in my opinion, defamatory) allegation against the professors…but hasn’t apologised and nor has Stuff, which has not even seen fit to remove the false assertion from the body of the column.
I will be seeking access to the court documents as I have a very strong suspicion that I will also have been defamed by these two in their submissions, blaming me for the vitriol they are both experiencing.
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