Dr Michael Johnston is an Associate Dean of Education at Victoria University of Wellington. His teaching focuses on the educational assessment and in particular, the positive and negative impacts on pedagogy and curriculum. 

Dr Johnston has launched a campaign calling for New Zealand's universities to adopt the University of Chicago's statement on free speech, and he sits down with Patrick to discuss the campaign and how educational institutions do their students a disservice by trying to 'protect' them from controversial or offensive ideas or speakers.

The Chicago principles are available here: https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/reports/FOECommitteeReport.pdf

Dr Jonston's letter to VUW's Vice-Chancellor is available here: www.freespeechcoalition.nz/johnston_letter

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