Academic freedom as insubordination: the legalisation of the academy

Australian academics, like their overseas counterparts, have, over recent years, felt an attenuation of the freedom traditionally ascribed to the academic. This attenuation has been accompanied by termination of employment, legal proceedings, and limitations placed on use of facilities or previously enjoyed freedoms. This paper considers the notion of academic freedom, and its traditional justification. It assesses the basis of that justification in the changing environment of higher education, and asserts that the need for academic freedom is not diminished by the commercialisation of the academy. Quite the reverse is the case. The paper considers the legal justifications for attacks on academic freedom, and the premises upon which they are based, with a view to arming the academic against such justifications.     

Crisis,justice, and managing the appetite for risk

Jindal Global Law Review - The phrase ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ is often (mis)attributed to Winston Churchill. It expresses the common perception that the sentiments evoked...     

The relation between interviewers’ personal characteristics and investigative interview performance in a child sexual abuse context

Despite important progress in knowledge about interview ‘best practice’ with child victims, few studies had yet evaluated the impact of interviewers’ personal characteristics on adherence to these ‘best practice’. This study was designed to determine whether interviewers’ personal characteristics are associated with adherence to a structured interview protocol (National Institute of Child and Human Development), the use of open-ended questions and the amount of details provided in children’s responses during investigative interviews with alleged victims of child sexual abuse. 114 interviews were scored from 13 police investigators after they followed a one-week training program. Results showed that experience, emotional intelligence, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism were related with adherence to the protocol and ratio of open-ended questions. Cognitive abilities were related to the amount of details obtained from the child. Generalized estimating equations were used to compare relative contribution of each variable. These findings raise questions about how investigative interviewers are selected and trained.