University of Queensland warned economist he faced dismissal if he continued with similar research into the attitudes of bus drivers

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The University of Queensland suppressed a study on racism on Brisbane city council buses and punished the co-author for misconduct after the council complained.



Professor Paul Frijters, whose 2013 study found drivers were less likely to let Indian or black passengers ride without paying, was forbidden from further publishing the research and demoted last year.



Frijters, an economist, was warned he faced dismissal if he carried out more similar research. But he fought the decision, which was subsequently overturned by the university’s lawyers and all formal allegations were dropped.



While he remained “a fully productive academic” who enjoyed the support of colleagues in the UQ school of economics, Frijters said: “It’s cost me a lot of time and frustration.

“You feel a bit bullied but on the other hand, I’ve been in this research for a long time now. When bureaucracy tries to shove it under the carpet, well, I can’t look away. There’s too much of my life gone into it.”

UQ’s treatment of Frijters, who has spent $50,000 on his defence, has raised the hackles of other academics, including Yale economist Ian Ayres. Frijters’ supporters also include federal shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh.



The study, which was co-authored with a PhD student, involved 30 students of different ages and ethnic backgrounds getting on to 1,500 buses with faulty transport cards and asking if they could ride without paying.



It found that drivers allowed white and east Asian passengers to ride free about 72% of the time, but only 50% for Indian and 36% for black passengers.

The findings were widely publicised but the university received an informal complaint from Brisbane Transport, the council’s bus authority, that the study involved “fare evasion”.

The university then banned further publication or promotion of the study on suspicion that Frijters not sought the necessary approval from the university ethics committee.



The university was concerned there was no “voluntary informed consent” from the bus drivers or “gatekeeper approval from the Brisbane city council”.



These were outlined in a formal letter of apology from acting UQ pro vice chancellor Alastair McEwan to Brisbane Transport in May 2014.



“The university considers the events that have transpired to be unacceptable and to have compromised the best practice models that our ethics frameworks set out to uphold,” McEwan wrote.



“We regret and sincerely apologise for any offence that may have been caused to the bus drivers and the council as a result of the manner in which the research was conducted, and then disseminated through the mass media.”



However, according to a public interest disclosure released by Frijters to Guardian Australia under whistleblower provisions, UQ lawyers two months later overturned the decision to demote him to assistant professor and dropped all allegations of misconduct.



That followed Frijters appealing the decision to a committee of review, alleging procedural unfairness and breaches of university guidelines.



Frijters told Guardian Australia it was “appalling” that the university was suppressing the study and “inappropriately victimising one of its researchers for uncovering evidence of racism on the mere basis that the bus company involved complained about fare evasion”.

He decided to go public because it had been six months since he sent the public interest disclosure to UQ senate member John Story, detailing his concerns about the 18-month misconduct process, but had not received any response.



“The public interest disclosure is about the ways they have ignored their own procedures to go after this research,” Frijters said.



“I sort of wait in trepidation at how the university will react to this, I guess. It’s sad that it’s come to this. [But] I’m hoping they will order an open inquiry.”

Yale economist Ayres came to Frijters’ defence this week in pieces for the New York Times and Forbes.com. Ayres wrote in the latter: “Instead of being persecuted, [Frijters and his co-author] should be praised for offering us a model for civil rights testing in the new millennium.”



Economist Nicholas Gruen said the case was a “terrible” example of how universities dealt with ethics considerations as “a matter of bureaucratic arse covering and the avoidance of any kind of discomfort for anyone”.



“This sorry saga illustrates the way ethics approvals [are] genuinely strangling all kinds of research initiatives,” he said.



“Essentially the entire ethics procedure is an attempt to avoid anything that might make anyone squeamish or uncomfortable. Of course good research, certainly in social sciences will often do that.”



Clinical ethics expert Dr Andrew Crowden told Guardian Australia that Frijters had made a “common mistake” by underestimating the ethical risks of his own research.



But the university had “shared the mistake” when his department signed off on the study, which showed a “systemic failure” that UQ had chosen not to address despite Crowden’s recommendations in response to the case.



Frijters’ punishment had thus been “overly harsh and inappropriately punitive”.



Leigh said such studies had been rare in Australia and were “an important tool for measuring racial and ethnic discrimination”.



“With better research, we stand a better chance of reducing the scourge of discrimination,” he said.



UQ vice chancellor Peter Høj said the university could not comment on proceedings with Frijters as they were confidential and “ongoing”.



“UQ is confident it has responded — and continues to respond — appropriately,” he said.



“Academic freedom is a core value at UQ, as is research integrity. UQ places the highest importance on upholding the integrity of our research and will continue to do so with vigilance, and will seek to identify further measures to strengthen that endeavour.”



A spokesman for Brisbane city council said it “strongly denies any suggestion that it interfered with the research, which was published prior to Council’s knowledge of the study being conducted”.



“UQ has disowned the research and formally apologised to [the council] for the research that they believe was conducted in an unacceptable fashion that compromised the university’s ethical framework,” he said.

