I fear for my safety, university race claimant Cindy Prior tells

A woman who seeks $250,000 damages in a racial vilification case against three students says she felt at risk.

Cindy Prior leaving the Qld Federal Court.

A Brisbane woman who seeks $250,000 in damages in a racial vilification case against three university students for Facebook posts has described feeling “at risk of imminent but unpredictable physical or verbal assault” after reading what they wrote.

Cindy Prior, an administrative officer who has been unable to work for two years since she turned non-indigenous students away from the computer lab of Queensland University of Technology’s Oodgeroo Unit, had “nightmares, fear and sweating”, and felt “unsafe and frightened to return to work”, according to her newly sworn affidavit.

“I feel completely let down by all the people involved in this episode. It ended my career and my tertiary studies,’’ said Ms Prior, a member of the Noongar tribe.

“I was unwell for a very long time, unable to go outside my home, hospitalised for panic ­attacks and reduced to living off $450 a week for nearly two years. I am deeply disappointed that my private case has now become public, and I have been publicly vilified by people I don’t even know or who know me, or who don’t know the full story which led to the ending of my career at QUT.”

The case, which is shaping as a test of the controversial section 18C of the federal Racial Discrimination Act, came before judge ­Michael Jarrett in the Federal Circuit Court in Brisbane yesterday as lawyers for the students sought to have the case dismissed.

Tony Morris QC told the court one of his clients, Jackson Powell, whose Facebook post said “I wonder where the white supremacist computer lab is”, was being sarcastic and could not possibly have caused “offence, insult, humiliation or intimidation which has profound and serious effects, not to be likened to mere slights”.

“There is nothing inherently offensive, insulting, humiliating or intimidating about Mr Powell’s words. On the contrary, it is obvious that Mr Powell was making a joke,’’ Mr Morris said.

“There is no reference to Aborigines, Torres Strait Islanders or indigenous persons … there is an unequivocal and emphatic protest against racial segregation, regardless of the particular race, colour, or national or ethnic origins of the persons who benefit from such segregation.

“At worst the joke was in bad taste, but there was no evidence anyone (including Ms Prior) was offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated.”

Mr Morris said his other client, Calum Thwaites, had insisted he had not made a Facebook post that featured the word “nigger”, and he had complained to Facebook an unknown person had set up a false profile. There was not a shred of evidence to suggest Mr Thwaites was not being truthful.

Section 18C constituted an “extreme ... encroachment on ­traditional liberties, including freedom of speech”.

Michael Henry, counsel for the third student, Alex Wood, said his post — “Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous students computer lab. QUT stopping segregation with segregation” — was a factual and innocuous statement made after he had been ejected by Ms Prior “in a manner which he perceived to have been aggressive and unpleasant”.

“It is not directed at any person but rather at QUT itself as a critique of their policy of mandating substantive segregation,’’ he said.

Judge Jarrett intends to rule only on the students’ arguments that they have no case to answer, not constitutionality questions as to the legitimacy of section 18C.

Ms Prior’s lawyer, Susan Anderson, said she would want to cross-examine Mr Thwaites to test his claims he did not post.

Ms Prior said in her affidavit that she couldn’t “even think about going back (to work) there” as the students “knew me” and she was terrified of being “physically attacked by them”.

She told a doctor she had “chest pains, anxiety and an ongoing fear of returning to the workplace due to concerns about my physical safety”.

Judge Jarrett has reserved his decision.