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".

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