Identity politics, political correctness and s18C

The suggestion that the law worked well and justly by dismissing the claim ignores the fact that the students have endured enormous stress, inconvenience and reputational damage as a result of this case. They would have also incurred massive legal bills if Tony Morris QC had not agreed to act pro bono. The students must be considered victims of the case and a law which allows such a case to be brought to court when it never should have been at the very least needs to be reformed for this reason alone. 

Identity politics and political correctness

An interesting and yet unfortunate aspect of the case is the fact that Ms Prior’s emotional reaction to the posts was a grossly disproportionate response. Perhaps this is not surprising given the advent of identity politics and political correctness in recent decades. 

Identity politics, a child of cultural Maxism, is underpinned by a worldview which divides people into groups of oppressors and the oppressed, rather than as individuals who each have their own unique experiences. Justice involves granting special rights to members of oppressed groups in order to compensate for past wrongs committed against members of their group. According to this viewpoint, Indigenous disadvantage today is entirely the direct result of historical wrongs which have been committed against many Indigenous persons in the past, and to suggest otherwise is to be guilty of racism. Perhaps this is the real reason why Bill Leak’s controversial cartoon about broken homes in remote Indigenous communities so upset the politically correct. Principles of personal responsibility are eschewed because any wrongs they commit are attributed to oppressors, to the long term detriment of such individuals.

Political correctness is the ideological sibling of identity politics. Political correctness holds that we must not say or do things which might upset members of oppressed groups. It infantalises by treating members of certain groups as particularly sensitive beings in need of protection from hurtful comments, and provides moral validation and encouragement to those who take offence, in doing so promoting feelings of grievance. Section 18C itself is the legal promulgation of political correctness in Australia. One politically correct Australian academic has even described attempts to reform section 18C as being “not about free speech, but the freedom of white men to hand out racial abuse”. 

The Plaintiff’s political beliefs

Cindy Prior had clearly benefited from identity politics. We know that her Aboriginality obviously helped her obtain a role as an administrative officer in QUT’s Oodgeroo Unit on what may well be more favourable pay and conditions than a position she could have obtained in the private sector. She would have felt that asking non-Indigenous students to leave a computer lab reserved for Indigenous students was only just and fair. The result of identity politics and political correctness was a person of unusual psychological fragility. The psychological report of Dr Simone Shaw revealed that Prior unlikely to attribute personal responsibility to events that occur in her life, as well as the following insights:

Ms Prior presents with strong convictions in relation to fairness and equity and her sense of injustice, not only in relation to the most recent workplace incident, but this was also evident through her recollections of her involvement in four previous workplace incidents and two historical personal incidents that subsequently caused her significant distress and she reportedly instigated legal involvement on several occasions to resolve those issues. Her core belief of fairness and equity justice has resulted in a sense of injustice in relation to the incident on 28 May, 2013.

Conclusion

The evidence before the Federal Circuit Court suggested that Cindy Prior’s pre-existing psychological frailties, which made her fear a KKK presence at her university as a result of the abovementioned Facebook posts, were the products of the infantilisation of Indigenous peoples caused by identity politics and political correctness. And having been humiliated in the courts and facing a substantial award of costs against her, she is now herself a victim of identity politics and political correctness. Those supporters of section 18C who are so concerned with the psychological wellbeing of Indigenous individuals should bear in mind the unintended consequences of identity politics and political correctness that underpinned their support for section 18C. As well as promoting political divides and restricting fundamental rights such as free speech, identity politics and political correctness ultimately harm the very people they are intended to assist, and this is yet another reason why s18C should be repealed or amended.