This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The University of Sydney professor Barry Spurr has resigned from his post after racist and sexist emails, sent from his work account, were published by a news website.



Spurr last week reached a confidential agreement with New Matilda, the independent news website that published the emails, after taking the case to the federal court and demanding the emails be returned to him.



He had also demanded no further correspondence be published and that the emails published on the news website be taken down. The court ordered that New Matilda be allowed to keep already published emails online but that no new emails be published.

In October Spurr dropped a bid to have the source of the emails revealed.

A two-sentence statement released by his employer on Thursday morning said: “University of Sydney announced that Professor Barry Spurr has submitted his resignation and the university has accepted it.

“At Professor Spurr’s request, the university will provide no further comment on this matter.”

Spurr had been under pressure to resign after calling people racist names in the emails such as “Abo’s” and “chinky-poos”.



He described the prime minister, Tony Abbott, as an “Abo lover”, writing that he would have to be surgically separated from his “Siamese twin”, Australian of the Year and Aboriginal, Adam Goodes.

He also labelled Indigenous Australians “human rubbish tips” and described Nelson Mandela as a “darky”.



The university immediately launched an investigation when the emails were first published, and in a statement at the time said: “Racist, sexist or offensive language is not tolerated at the University of Sydney”.

In his submission to court, Spurr repeated his argument that the emails were a “whimsical” word game with colleagues and friends. He argued New Matilda was in possession of “stolen” information as he did not believe the emails were forwarded to the news site, but rather hacked.

Spurr was a “special consultant” on the government’s curriculum review, in which he recommended that the English curriculum place more emphasis on western literature and said Indigenous culture had little impact on Australia’s literature.

New Matilda originally posted extracts from the emails, later adding transcripts under the headline: “The Partial Works of Professor Barry Spurr. Poet, Racist, Misogynist.”

Spurr won a temporary injunction against New Matilda publishing any further emails or stories related to them in October and New Matilda agreed to extend the injunction until the hearing had concluded.

Justice Michael Wigney heard the case and congratulated the two parties on reaching a mutually acceptable agreement.

On Thursday the owner and editor of New Matilda, Chris Graham, said he was “uninterested” in Spurr’s relationship with the university.

What mattered to him was that Spurr’s recommendations to the federal government’s national curriculum review, tasked with looking at English from foundation to year 12, should be rejected.

“There has always been a broad consensus that Professor Spurr was a good lecturer and a good professor,” Graham said. “But from our perspective, the story has always been about Professor Spurr’s role on the review board and that still hasn’t been resolved.

“They have a review that has been tainted by a man whose views are clearly repugnant and the sense we are getting is that nothing will be done about that.



“So I’m uninterested in his relationship with the university.”



Guardian Australia has contacted the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority for comment. The authority is now considering the recommendations from the review board.

