Items on the Net
1993
The Rindos story first broke onto the Net with a posting in June 1993 to
various relevant mailing lists and boards by Hugh Jarvis of SUNY Buffalo.
The First Posting by Hugh Jarvis
was followed by
A reply by John Gordon, then Head of
Anthropology at UWA,
and a rejoinder by Dave Rindos.
It also generated a reply by Sandra Bowdler,
which led to a rejoinder by Paul
O'Higgins, a member of department at UWA which wished to take
Rindos on as a member of their faculty.
Hugh Jarvis' posting on sci.anthropology was replied to by a person from
Western Australia, Mr Gil Hardwick, who made a large number of highly
negative claims regarding what he understood to be the "real" reasons why
Dave Rindos had been fired by UWA. None of these related to the public,
and strictly academic, claims being made by UWA, but instead he alleged
that Dave had been removed because of his political attitudes, personality
and sexual habits. This whole business was ultimately to result in Rindos
suing Hardwick, and led to the the first successful litigation for
defamation on the Internet. This aspect of the story is treated
separately in the Legal Menu.
1994
An update was provided by Hugh Jarvis in March 1994 which took into
account documents some of the documents released through Freedom of
Information proceedings. This Second Posting
includes comments by Dr Rindos and UWA (including a possible threat of
legal action) in the text.
1995
Another posting went out in June 1995. This Third Posting includes
separate messages from:
Hugh Jarvis,
The Vice-Chancellor at the
University of Western Australia, and
Dr Rindos.
The fourth update was posted in November
1995, and contained a copy of the Editorial published in The
Australian.
To view a few of the letters of complaint sent electronically to UWA as a
result of this postings, select here.
1996
In February 1996, the Post-Graduate ["Graduate students"] Association at
UWA published an article by Mr Andrus Budrikis who had been president of
the association during the time that UWA was first attempting to cover-up
the problems in archaeology. His account, along with a reply by the
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Alan Robson, may be viewed by linking directly to
their Web Page in
Australia.
The fifth posting by Hugh Jarvis went out in March 1996 and was largely
composed of a series of extracts from the Parliamentary Speech delivered in the West
Australian Parliament by Hon Mark Nevill. This posting resulted in
substantial comment from UWA and readers on the net. The documents
associated with these events in March 1996 include:
Hugh Jarvis' Fifth posting
Reply by Professor Tonkinson, UWA
Reply to Tonkinson by Jarvis
Comment by Douglas Hanson
Comment by Eric Brunner
Comment by Bob Jeske
Comment by Robert W. Park
Comment by Elliot Richmond
Comment by Monica A. Smith
Comment by Dave Rindos
Comment by Patrick M Thomas
Comment by UWA, forwarded by Hugh Jarvis
Comments from Vice-Chancellory, forwarded by
Hugh Jarvis
Comment by Martha Johnson
Draft of Newspaper Article forwarded by Robert
Tonkinson
Comment by Monica A. Smith
At around the same time, the formal international float of this site was announced. An earlier
Australian float began to lead to comments being sent to UWA [e.g. an
e-mail letter to the Vice-Chancellor from a
parent in Western Australia
The Sixth Posting by Hugh Jarvis went out
in April 1996, and contained reflections upon the case to date and also
served to internationally announce the Parliamentary Advertizement for Submissions on
the denial of tenure to Dr Rindos and the nature of managment processes at
UWA.
In July 1996, the public announcement went out
formally creating the second Site for these archives at the Justice on
Campus Project.
Following a long delay, due in part to the apparent unwillingess of UWA to
reply to the message sent them for comment, the seventh update was broadcast on 18 September.
This posting dealt, in large part, with the attempts by UWA to supress
this site by means of claims by their lawyers that some part or parts of
the material contained here is defamatory to certain unnamed
individuals. Data relevant to this action by UWA may be found on the Censorship section of this site.
Comment by Danny Tan
Comment by Jason Stokes
December 9th, 1996, early in the morning, David Rindos died in his sleep,
apparently of natural causes. An autopsy decided he had died of a massive,
probably stress-induced, heart attack. A
memorial message was posted to the Net later
that day, US-time. It is not yet known how this awful event will affect
the Parliamentary inquiry or the whole UWA affair. More information will be
posted as it comes in. Dave will be sorely missed.
1997
December 10, 1997, the anniversary of Dave's death. Two email messages posted
to the large, international discussion list, ANTHRO-L, remind us of his loss.
Comment by Julian O'Dea to ANTHRO-L
Comment by Leon Deleuil to ANTHRO-L
More messages posted to the Net:
Julian O'Dea, Dec 11, to ANTHRO-L & ARCH-L
Julian O'Dea, Dec 15, to ANTHRO-L & ARCH-L
Hugh Jarvis, Dec 19, to ANTHRO-L, ARCH-L, AIA-L, SUB-ARCH, SUBARCH, sci.anthropology, & sci.archaeology
2002
With David's death, and the completion of the Parliamentary investigations in UWA activities,
the Net became quite quiet. However, the topic is still one of interest, as shown by a new
book available for free online:
The Subversion of Australian Universities, edited by John Biggs & Richard Davis.
Fund for Intellectual Dissent. Free online at:
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/sau/.
("The central theme: commercialism and managerialism have subverted the purpose of
universities. Case studies from Orr to Ormond provide insights into what's been
happening in Australian higher education over the past half century.")
Especially see chapter six, "David Rindos versus the University of Western Australia:
analogies to the Orr case, by Brian Martin".