Pro-life professor in Australia takes Adelaide University to federal court

Prominent Australian pro-life activist Joanna Howe announced she has launched legal action against her employer, Adelaide University, in the Federal Court of Australia.

In an email to supporters on Oct. 23 she said she had been inundated by an avalanche of investigations and complaints about her views on issues including abortion and gender ideology.

“There are now more than 200 allegations and sub-allegations against me,” Howe stated on her website.

“Every single one relates to something I’ve said on a controversial topic. Not one relates to anything I’ve said or done in the classroom. My crime? Disagreeing with the leftwing orthodoxy of the academy.”

None of the complaints, she said, relates to her academic work. She is a Rhodes Scholar who is an expert on the legal regulation of temporary labor migration, labor law, and migration policy. She is the author of three books. She has a doctorate from the University of Oxford and was appointed a full professor in 2023.

Her fierce advocacy for unborn children has made her a national figure in the media. But this should not make her persona non grata in the university, she said.

“Universities should not be a monoculture. Academic freedom means nothing if it doesn’t protect views the activists don’t like,” she wrote.

“This isn’t just about me. It’s about every conservative student, every Christian, and every junior academic who has learned to keep their head down. And it’s about every Australian who has been told to keep quiet at work or face the consequences.”

Howe told the Adelaide Advertiser that other academics were cold-shouldering her over her views. “One colleague came out of the bathroom and, bizarrely, literally screamed in my face,” she said.

She said she wants Universities Australia to decree that “complaints that are made vexatiously or in bad faith” should be dismissed. 

She also wants universities to investigate complaints about academics’ research only “if they are made by a person who is a member of the academic staff of the university, a person of good standing in Australia’s academic research community, or a person directly affected by the alleged misconduct.”

This will not be the first time Howe and her employer have clashed.

In 2024 she took Adelaide University to the Fair Work Commission because the university had demanded that she comply with “corrective actions” even though she had been cleared in six investigations.

It wanted her to complete an anti-bias course and to have a formal discussion with her manager about her research. She won that battle: the university withdrew its “corrective actions.” But the complaints have continued. 

“Enough is enough,” Howe said. She said she is prepared to fight her case all the way to the High Court.

This story was first published in the Catholic Weekly. It has been adapted by EWTN News and reprinted here with permission.

Source: https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/asia-pacific/pro-life-professor-in-australia-takes-adelaide-university-to-federal-court