Andrew Bolt: Uni’s treatment of Ridd sad news for debate in Australia

Are Australians better off after a university spent more than $1m to persecute and sack a scientist who dared tell the truth about global warming?

Professor Peter Ridd was stitched up. He challenged the ludicrous global warming scaremongering of his colleagues – and now the High Court says he was right to be sacked.

How frightening.

I know, the High Court on Wednesday said James Cook University was actually wrong to censure Ridd for telling Sky News in 2017 his fellow academics could not be trusted when they said global warming was devastating the Great Barrier Reef.

Ridd, by the way, was right. A report in July by the Australian Institute of Marine Science shows about record coral cover.

I’d have thought James Cook University would be more worried by its staff who were wrong, than by Ridd, who was right, yet it was Ridd they went for.

Peter Ridd. Picture: Jamila Toderas

The university censured him for being rude and not “collegiate”, and then tried to punish him in secret. Under his employment contract, he was not allowed to tell anyone – not even his wife – what the university was doing to get him to shut up.

This alarmed Ridd. He wasn’t just fighting for his career and his freedom to speak. He felt the country had to know how debate was being stifled at a university we pay for. He refused to go quietly.

And what he did next is what the High Court said did, after all, justify his university sacking him.

It found Ridd broke the rules by, for instance, telling journalists of his secret show trial, and “communicating to a student in a manner that directly or indirectly trivialised, satirised, or parodied JCU’s disciplinary action”.

Seriously? He dared to laugh at the university’s witch hunters? Sacrilege!

Ridd still wouldn’t bow. He would not give up his battle to speak his mind against the alarmists who dominate the media, scaring people senseless with their wild claims.

But the High Court has now said sorry. Yes, Ridd indeed had a right to speak out about the science – his university was wrong – but he did not have a right to speak out about the university’s secretive attempts to make him pay. His sacking was just.

Go figure: so Ridd could publicly question the dodgy science, but not the university’s disgraceful attempts to punish him for it.

What an indictment of his university, and what sad news for debate in Australia.

Are Australians better off after this university spent more than $1m to persecute and sack a scientist who dared tell the truth about global warming?

Shameful, just shameful.