Uni Professor Threatens to Spear Staffer… Just a Joke?

I work in a university, so I get all these higher education news emails, and this story stood out: “James Cook University professor allegedly threatens staff member to meet targets”. The professor in question is Professor Martin Nakata. If you look at his bio on JCU’s website, he is the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Indigenous Education and Strategy, and he was the first Torres Strait Islander to graduate with a PhD. So obviously, he’s a very smart guy. According to the news story, a senior female worker alleges Professor Nakata would “spear her” if she failed to dramatically increase Indigenous enrolments, which he later claimed was just a “joke”. Apparently this was said in front of a staff meeting.

Okay, so my first thought before delving deeper, was that it probably was a joke. I’m not saying it’s a good joke. Some would say it’s in poor taste. Due to the recent Indigenous Voice referendum, and so on, where everyone is a bit on edge regarding Indigenous relations, you could also argue it was poor timing to make such a joke. A similar joke might be if a German professor jokingly threatened his staff by saying, “If you don’t meet the targets, I’ll send you to Auschwitz!”, in reference to something that happened 80 years ago. I think that’s kind of along the same lines of dark humour. I can’t imagine Professor Nakata literally meaning he was going to grab a spear and spear the staffer if she didn’t meet her targets. That would be a rather stupid thing to insinuate in front of other people. But as I said, this is just my first thought.

Now of course, the lady on the receiving end of this ‘joke’ certainly has a right to say something, if she felt that it was said in a harassing sort of way. The Australian newspaper also published a story about this yesterday indicating that it wasn’t exactly the threat in itself that the staffer was upset by, but rather that the university did very little about it. “James Cook University accused of ‘doing nothing’ in response to bully claim”. In the article, they state that Professor Nakata had told her she needed to increase Indigenous enrolment from 670 to 1000, a target she felt was unrealistic. She said, “He’s a Torres Strait Islander man and because of that and because we’re the Indigenous centre, we have things on our walls, and one of the things is the spear. He points to the spear and says if you don’t reach that target, I’m going to take that spear off the wall and I’m going to spear (the lady’s name). On the Friday he repeated the same comment, and later that day he repeated the same thing in front of a student.”

Okay, so it wasn’t just a one-off comment, it appears he repeated it at least three times, which I understand could be taken as bullying. Although, the fact that he said it in front of a student makes me think that he honestly believed it was some sort of joke. If your intent was to literally spear the lady, why would you broadcast it to the world? I think he just thought it was funny. Maybe that’s a classic Torres Strait Islander one-liner.

The lady continued, “It flabbergasted me. Everybody felt very uncomfortable … they sat there in silence, I think in shock. I felt totally humiliated, and I was also quite dumbfounded.” A JCU spokesman said: “The university is aware of the alleged incident. All such allegations are taken seriously and handled in accordance with the university’s policies and procedures.”

The woman said she had worked with Professor Nakata for more than five years and they had previously had a good working relationship. She said she tried to resolve the matter unofficially, by emailing Professor Nakata and telling him she “respectfully requested him” to stop making the comments. He said he was sorry and it was just a joke. The woman said she had accepted his apology and was keen to work together as normal, but her relationship with him had deteriorated to the point where he did not speak to her.

“I went to HR and they’ve basically done nothing. He’s a very respected Indigenous academic and he’s very high-profile and I think they don’t know what to do. If it was somebody at a lower level, they would have been suspended or sacked. They are trying to work out how to make me go away.”

The woman has been on stress leave and annual leave.

Okay, so obviously from the lady’s perspective, this turn of events has had a really profound impact on her life. If what the article says is true, then the university are essentially trying to protect the professor and/or their reputation, although, now that it’s out in the media, they have to address this. As far as I can tell, the police have not been called, so nobody’s treating it like an actual threat, but that said, what if the opposite happened? What if it was a staffer or a student who had threatened Professor Nakata with a spear? I somehow suspect things would have played out a little differently.

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