Sacked James Cook University physicist Peter Ridd to have case heard in High Court

Peter Ridd has been granted special leave to appeal his dismissal from Queensland’s James Cook University.

‘Academics are going to be really fearful of saying anything’: former James Cook University professor Peter Ridd. Picture: Rohan Thomson

Peter Ridd, the Queensland physicist dismissed from James Cook University over criticisms he made about his colleagues’ research on climate change and the Great Barrier Reef, will have his case heard by the High Court.

The former academic, who was fired by the institution in 2018, told The Australian on Thursday the court’s decision to grant special leave and agree to hear his case later this year showed why codes of conduct restricting academic freedom and free speech should be rewritten.

“Codes of conduct, if you’re going to include them, need massive rewriting,” he said. “The way they are at the moment means you can’t say things such as ‘universities are Orwellian’ … that constitutes serious misconduct and if that’s the state we’ve got to, it’s an absolute disaster.”

Stuart Wood QC, on behalf of Dr Ridd, argued on Thursday that while his client had spoken “hard truths” and breached the university code of conduct by making “disrespectful comments” about his colleagues, he should have been protected by the intellectual freedom clause in his­ ­contract.

“The court should be very troubled by the facts of this case,” he said. “The commitment from the university to protect academic freedom was resiled from and Dr Ridd was punished for doing what he should be doing.”

Mr Wood said the purpose of the clause was to allow academics to “robustly exchange ideas without being censured … as long as you don’t harass, bully, ­vilify or intimidate”.

Dr Ridd had previously told Sky News that research bodies like the Australian Institute of Marine Science could “no longer be trusted” and privately accused colleagues of “doom science about the Great Barrier Reef”.

James Cook University’s barrister, Bret Walker SC, said both the code of conduct and enterprise agreement should not be viewed in isolation and together supported intellectual freedom within a framework of treating colleagues with respect.

“It’s a long bow indeed that … behaving with respect for others is incongruent to the exercise of intellectual freedom,” he said.

“If you assume in your interpretation that intellectual freedom includes freedom from all modes of complying with norms of conduct, such as respect, courtesy, lack of abuse … we have a detraction in the code of conduct.”

Mr Walker said it was undisputed that Dr Ridd had beached those conditions.

Outside court, Dr Ridd said if he were to lose his appeal later this year, he believed Australian academics would be deterred from engaging in debate.

“I think it means that academics are going to be really fearful of saying anything that’s robust on any matter and, of course, the left wing and the right wing are now agreeing on this,” he said.

A 2019 court decision found Dr Ridd had been unfairly dismissed, awarding him $1.2m in compensation, but the university last July won an appeal at the Federal Circuit Court, which found the Townsville-based university had not acted unlawfully when it sacked its employee of 30 years for breaching its code of conduct.