Students accused of racist posts say Human Rights Commission guilty of discrimination
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Version 0 of 1. Two university students being sued for allegedly racist Facebook posts have launched a complaint of their own, claiming the Australian Human Rights Commission discriminated against them because they were white heterosexual males. Calum Thwaites and Jackson Powell are subject to a lawsuit by Queensland University of Technology administration officer Cindy Prior. They claim the AHRC breached their human rights by failing to notify them of the complaint against them for more than a year. The two are demanding an apology from the AHRC, compensation for legal costs understood to already be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and that the commission change the way it deals with complaints. In the complaint documents their lawyer, Tony Morris QC, claims the two were “at all times treated by the AHRC with absolute, unequivocal and flagrant indifference, disregard, contumacy, hauteur, disdain, vilipendency and insouciance”. He argues they were treated in that way because they were white male heterosexuals who were not active members of any religious sect or trade union and were not generally politically outspoken. The case stems from a May 2013 incident in which Prior asked three students to leave an Indigenous-only computer lab at the university, prompting one of them, Alex Wood, who is also being sued, to post, “Just got kicked out of the unsigned Indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation?” on Facebook. The post attracted a string of comments, some of which were critical of the existence of the Indigenous-only lab, including one from Powell who wrote: “I wonder where the white supremacist lab is.” Thwaites has denied being behind another post that included a racial slur. Prior is not mentioned by name in any of the posts but went on leave after the incident and is suing the three students and the university for almost $250,000 in lost wages and general damages, plus future economic loss. She later claimed she felt unsafe leaving her home due to fears of being verbally abused and was unable to return to work in a role requiring face-to-face contact with white people. Her complaint was initially handled by the AHRC, which tried to resolve the matter through conciliation with QUT. But the students were not notified of the complaint until just days before a final conference in August 2015, despite the matter being with the AHRC for more than a year. The AHRC terminated the conciliation process a few weeks after that conference, paving the way for the current lawsuit and the students involved claim they were denied the opportunity to have the case thrown out while it was before the commission. The AHRC has not commented on the case directly but says respondents are sometimes not notified in situations where it is not clear if the complainant wishes to continue with the proceedings against them, so as to not cause the respondent unnecessary concern. Lawyers for QUT have said in court documents that Prior wrote to the commission requesting the students not be notified of the complaint until settlement discussions with the university had been completed. The AHRC also said that it will sometimes ask an organisation, such as an employer, to notify individual respondents and added that it was not uncommon for the organisation to negotiate a settlement with the complainant without the individual respondents being involved. |