Law professor who claimed ‘Blak' activists were leading University of Melbourne to ‘destruction' sues for discrimination
Last month, a 2023 email written by Dr Eric Descheemaeker to the then head of the Melbourne Law School (MLS) was leaked and posted around the university's Parkville campus. In the email, in response to the announcement of a cultural safety review at the university, Descheemaeker said MLS was 'celebrating the 'noble savage'' and likened it to an 'ideological re-education camp'.
Descheemaeker filed an application in relation to discrimination under the Fair Work Act in the federal court on 18 July, court records show.
The application is related to section 351 of the act which stipulates an employer must not take adverse action against an employee because of attributes, including a person's race, colour, sex and sexual orientation.
During a brief court mention in Melbourne on Friday, federal court judge Val Gostencnik said the matter would return for a hearing in September, with the parties agreeing the university would not terminate Descheemaeker's employment or take any adverse action until the injunction application had been determined.
In the email to then Melbourne Law School dean, Prof Matthew Harding, on 12 August 2023, Descheemaeker wrote that there was 'absolutely no end to where 'Blak' activists are meaning to take us – except destruction'.
'They have made us start every meeting with ritual prayers,' he wrote.
'Their (non-existing) claims to land are now 'acknowledged' about every 10 feet in our corridors. They want me to teach that Australian law is only 'settler law' and that there exists a rich body of 'indigenous law' alongside (what are indigenous private-law remedies, I wonder. Ritual spearings?).
'Celebrating the 'noble savage' is already the main, if not exclusive, thing MLS appears to exist for – with just a bit of space to spare for every possible sexual or gendered minority vying for claims to victimhood.'
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Descheemaeker said he joined what he thought was a world-class law faculty but had woken up in an 'ideological re-education camp' with 'incredibly parochial concerns'.
The university commissioned a cultural safety review in 2023 – the same year Indigenous academic Dr Eddie Cubillo resigned from his role as an associate dean and senior fellow at the university's prestigious MLS.
Cubillo, a Larrakia, Wadjigan and Central Arrernte man and former Northern Territory discrimination commissioner, told Guardian Australia at the time that MLS was the 'most culturally unsafe place I've worked'.
Descheemaeker's email was first reported by The Age last month. MLS dean Prof Michelle Foster told The Age the leak was being investigated.
'The University of Melbourne aspires to be a place where all people are valued and respected, have equal access to opportunities and are encouraged to fulfil their talents and potential,' she said.
The university offers students and staff access to a range of free support services, Foster said.
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The university did not comment on whether there had been disciplinary action in response to the email.
In an email sent to MLS staff on 13 June, Foster said 'sensitive correspondence' from August 2023 had recently been posted on campus noticeboards and social media.
'I acknowledge that staff and students who read the notices may have been offended or upset by its contents,' Foster said in the email, viewed by Guardian Australia.
Foster said the university had taken immediate steps to remove the correspondence and was investigating how it came to be posted on campus. She said she was committed to ensuring cultural safety at the MLS and supported the 'important work under way in this regard'.
On Thursday, Foster told Guardian Australia that Descheemaeker was an employee of the university and said it would be improper to comment on an employment matter.
Descheemaeker joined MLS as a professor in 2017 and holds an honorary position as a Visiting Research Fellow of the Institute of European and Comparative Law at the University of Oxford.
Descheemaeker's lawyer said their client was unable to comment at this stage.
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