There's been quite a stir about Professor Barry Spurr's
suspension by Sydney University over his offensive emails.
The following link explains:

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/17/professor-barry-spurr-suspended-by-sydney-university-over-offensive-emails

Your thoughts please.

Foxy, with comments like that, and since he been flicked from the uni, the good professor could find a new home right here on the forum, he would fit in real well with some of our resident recasts. He's there kinda guy!

The article referred to in Foxy's post contains: “Racist, sexist or offensive language is not tolerated at the University of Sydney.”

Professor Spurr's comments in emails were not made at the University of Sydney so could not legitimately be a cause for suspension regardless of the contents of those statements as long as he was not offering those opinions in his professorial capacity. Offensive language should not be penalised in any way. If we penalise offensive language we do not have free speech. Whether a statement is offensive or not is a subjective matter, and statements one individual finds innocuous may be deemed offensive by another individual.

It is certainly a most interesting situation.

On the one hand, we have the defence of free speech - they are (private) views, communicated (privately) to friends and colleagues. To some folk, sure, they may be offensive, but you shouldn't be reading them anyway.

On the other, we have been provided with a window into the character of someone in a position to influence students at his university, and more broadly, influence educational policy for all students.

I suspect that New Matilda will have difficulty showing that the public interest of the latter trumps the universal freedoms of the former. Which will be a shame, because I am personally grateful to them for exposing these character traits. This knowledge will enable me to make a more informed decision, should I ever need to, about his role in the education of Australian youth.

The university is probably on less shaky ground in dismissing him, since the vehicle for the emails was their property, and the rules for its use are pretty clear.

[But apart from that. This is "Australia's first Professor of Poetry and Poetics" that we are talking about here. What standard of social awareness is considered a prerequisite for the person holding such a - presumably lucrative - post? Or is being an ageing white-bread Catholic propagandist considered sufficient?]

Spurr's comments were made using a University of Sydney e-mail account and thereby breached the University policy on use of Information and Communications Technology.

we allow woman (Emily's listers) who hold repulsive views to work at the highest levels and quite often in tax funded ABC jobs. Double standards as usual.