A federal court judge has drawn a line under the high-profile racial discrimination claim against three Queensland University of Technology students, saying they and their accuser had “suffered” from prolonged legal proceedings.
On Friday, Justice John Dowsett quashed an attempt by former QUT staff member Cindy Prior to revive her claim against the three students over Facebook comments criticising an Indigenous-only computer room where she worked.
Prior’s lawsuit against QUT and students Callum Thwaites, Jackson Powell and Alex Wood, which sought $250,000 damages for alleged breaches of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, was dismissed by the federal circuit court in November.
Dowsett denied Prior leave to appeal that ruling, and an extension of time to lodge it, saying: “I’m very serious about this – this matter must be brought to an end.”
He said: “These four young people have suffered more from legal proceedings than almost any other young person will in a lifetime.”
Dowsett called on lawyers for all four to use their “skills, knowledge and experience to bring these proceedings to an end”.
“It’s a great pity it hasn’t been brought to an end before now,” he said.
The judge ordered Prior to pay for the students’ legal costs of just under $15,000 from the latest court case.
Prior faces possible bankruptcy from having to pay legal costs from the earlier federal circuit court case. That figure is yet to be calculated but Tony Morris, the barrister for Powell and Thwaites, said it could run well into “six figures”.
Morris said outside court that the judge’s decision showed “none of the arguments” raised by Prior had a prospect of succeeding on appeal.
The trigger for the complaint was a comment by Wood on a QUT students Facebook page in 2013 suggesting Prior, then employed in the Indigenous studies unit, had asked him and other white students to leave the computer room.
Wood commented that QUT was “stopping segregation with segregation”. Powell asked where the “white supremacist” computer lab was. Thwaites was accused of posting “ITT niggers” but he has denied being responsible for the account and the federal court judge Michael Jarrett found there was no evidence otherwise.
Jarrett found Wood’s comment was “rallying against racial discrimination” and directed at QUT, while Powell’s was a “poor attempt at humour” unlikely to offend or insult Indigenous people.
In court papers filed in December, Prior’s barrister, Greg McIntyre, argued that the court had erred in part by failing to consider the effect on Indigenous QUT students of claims they had “no entitlement” to the room, a “special measure” allowed under Australian and international discrimination law.
The QUT case became a lightning rod for critics of 18C and the Australian Human Rights Commission, which was charged with handling the original complaint.
Critics say the fact that students posting on Facebook were drawn into a three-year saga culminating in expensive legal action and publicity shows the need to reform 18C and raise the hurdles for racial discrimination complaints.
Prior has also been subject to a flood of online threats and abuse after publicity about her case, prompting her to complain to the Australian federal police.
Her solicitor, Susan Moriarty, also said last year she had referred a violent threat to the police, which had prompted her to take stress leave.
