Sacked Sydney Uni professor Manuel Graeber vows to fight

Sacked University of Sydney professor Manuel Graeber says he will set up an academic defence union to defend whistleblowers.

Neuropathology professor Manuel Graeber was sacked from his job by the University of Sydney after an internal review. Photo: Damian Shaw

A senior University of Sydney professor who was sacked last Friday has vowed to fight back and says he will set up an academic defence union to defend whistleblowers.

Manuel Graeber, a neuropathologist with a highly regarded research record who held the university’s Barnet-Cropper Chair of Brain Tumor Research, was found by an internal review committee to have committed “serious misconduct”. Professor Graeber, who has been suspended from his duties at the university since August, has set up a GoFundMe page to support other academic whistleblowers and fund his proposed academic defence union.

“Australia needs good universities where academic values and principles rule and are not stamped upon,” Professor Graeber said in a message to fellow academics. “That’s worth a fight in my opinion.”

Professor Graeber told a Tasmanian parliamentary committee in a hearing last year that his “persecution” by University of Sydney management followed a public interest disclosure he had made involving “managerial abuse” and misconduct.

The University of Sydney Association of Professors, of which Professor Graeber is president, has strongly backed him in his long-running dispute with the university. A letter signed last month by 17 members of the USAP council linked Professor Graeber’s suspension to public interest disclosures describing “alleged wrongdoing by the university’s management”.

The council’s letter said Professor Graeber’s suspension was “seeming retribution by management for him fulfilling his USAP and fundamental public responsibilities via his public disclosures”.

Professor Graeber’s termination came after the review committee considered three matters alleged by the university – that Professor Graeber had failed to teach a class as directed, that he had barred entry to his office and pointed an iPhone camera at the door, and refused to take part in a meeting about his performance.

Professor Graeber has defended his actions saying the camera was to protect highly valuable scientific material he held – slides of brain tissue used by Alois Alzheimer in the early 1900s to diagnose the first case of what became known as Alzheimer’s disease. He also has said he refused to teach the class because he lacked the required expertise and had offered a suitable replacement. Regarding the performance meeting, Professor Graeber told the committee he believed the outcome was predetermined.

The University of Sydney said in a statement that it couldn’t comment on individual matters but strongly refuted any suggestion that it would take action against a staff member for expressing their opinions. The university said it protected those making public interest disclosures from detriment, in line with its policies and legislation.

“All our community is free to express their opinions, including about our university,” the statement said.