Pro-life professor in Australia takes Adelaide University to federal court
Australian pro-life activist and Adelaide University professor Joanna Howe has filed a case against her employer in the Federal Court, citing more than 200 complaints and allegations related to her public views on abortion and gender ideology. Howe says the complaints do not concern her teaching or academic work and argues that universities should protect academic freedom and diverse viewpoints. She wants Universities Australia to encourage dismissal of complaints made vexatiously or in bad faith and to limit who can make complaints about academic research. Howe previously challenged Adelaide University at the Fair Work Commission over corrective actions imposed after investigations; the university withdrew those actions, but she says complaints have continued.
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Joanna Howe, a pro-life professor at Adelaide University, says she has begun legal action against the university in Australia’s Federal Court after receiving more than 200 allegations and sub-allegations related to her public views on abortion and gender ideology. She argues the complaints concern her public statements, not her teaching or academic work, and says the dispute raises broader questions about academic freedom. 1
In an October 23 email to supporters, Howe said the complaints and investigations had become an “avalanche.” She described them as concerning things she had said on controversial subjects, and said none related to what she had said or done in the classroom. 1
Howe said her public advocacy for unborn children should not make her unwelcome at the university. She argued that universities should accommodate a range of views and said academic freedom must protect opinions that activists oppose. 1
She also told the Adelaide Advertiser that colleagues had treated her coldly because of her views, recounting that one colleague had “literally screamed” at her. 1
Howe has called on Universities Australia to support dismissing complaints made vexatiously or in bad faith. She also wants investigations into academics’ research to be limited to complaints from university academic staff, people of standing in Australia’s academic research community, or those directly affected by the alleged misconduct. 1
The current legal action follows an earlier dispute in 2024, when Howe took the university to the Fair Work Commission over required “corrective actions.” The university had asked her to complete an anti-bias course and discuss her research with her manager, despite her having been cleared in six investigations; it later withdrew those requirements. Howe said complaints continued afterward and that she was prepared to take the new case to the High Court if necessary. 1
Howe is a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate from the University of Oxford. Her academic expertise includes the legal regulation of temporary labor migration, labor law, and migration policy; she has written three books and was appointed a full professor in 2023. 1
Academic freedom requires protecting principled dissent within universities
Catholic teaching supports protecting principled dissent as part of genuine academic inquiry, but not treating every dissenting claim as equally sound or academic freedom as freedom from a university’s mission. In a Catholic university, scholarly freedom belongs within a search for truth, respect for persons, and the common good. For theologians, it also has a particular relationship to Catholic teaching authority: the space for research and discussion is real, while assent to Church teaching is owed according to the authority with which that teaching is proposed.
Ex Corde Ecclesiae affirms both institutional autonomy and the academic freedom of university members, while placing them “within the confines of the truth and the common good.” Its vision is not of a university where disagreement is suppressed, but one where research and teaching are conducted rigorously and critically and serve human dignity and the community.
That framework gives principled dissent an important role. A scholar may question an established interpretation, challenge prevailing opinion, or present evidence that others find unwelcome. Such disagreement can help inquiry advance—provided it is pursued through the proper methods of the discipline and with respect for the rights of others. Pope John Paul II accordingly recognized academic freedom for scholars in each discipline, according to that discipline’s principles and methods.
“you are called to search for the truth wherever careful analysis of evidence leads you.”
The point is not that scholars must reach conclusions pleasing to institutional leaders, nor that any disputed claim must be accepted. Rather, academic freedom protects the responsible process of inquiry: examining evidence, making arguments, and subjecting claims to criticism. The Church’s account therefore resists both arbitrary suppression of disagreement and the idea that freedom means indifference to whether claims are true.
The supplied Church texts do not define a formal category of “principled dissent” or specify procedures for protecting it. Their principles nonetheless suggest important distinctions. A dissenting position is compatible with serious academic inquiry when it arises from engagement with evidence and disciplinary methods, is argued honestly, and remains open to examination and correction. It is different from a claim made without regard for evidence, or from treating academic freedom as a guarantee that one’s work will be immune from scholarly criticism.
Nor does protecting dissent require pretending that every position has equal evidential or moral standing. John Paul II cautioned against a kind of pluralism that treats all opinions as having the same value, while also affirming the university’s responsibility to serve the whole truth. A healthy university can therefore protect someone’s opportunity to argue a position while also allowing others to rebut it and the institution to explain why it judges the argument mistaken.
The case is more specific when the dissent concerns Catholic doctrine in a Catholic university’s theology faculty. Ex Corde Ecclesiae recognizes theologians’ academic freedom, but says it is exercised according to theology’s own principles and methods. Since theology studies revealed truth as authentically interpreted by the Church’s bishops, theologians are to respect their authority and assent to Catholic doctrine according to the degree of authority with which it is taught. Dialogue between bishops and theologians is described as essential.
This does not mean that theological questions may never be investigated or that discussion is itself disloyal. The same text calls bishops to encourage theologians’ creative work and recognizes research that seeks deeper understanding, development, and communication of Christian revelation. But it does mean that academic freedom in Catholic theology is not equivalent to a right to present a contradiction of authoritative teaching as though theological scholarship were independent of the Church’s faith.
This theological qualification should not be carelessly extended to every scholarly dispute in every university discipline. The Church’s text recognizes the proper principles and methods of different fields; it singles out theology because of its relationship to revealed truth and the Church’s teaching authority.
A Catholic university has a defined identity as well as a scholarly mission. Its teaching, research, and other activities are to be informed by Catholic principles, and its official actions are to accord with that identity. At the same time, the university must respect each person’s freedom of conscience. Catholic identity and academic freedom are therefore not presented as mutually exclusive: the institution can preserve its character while providing real room for scholarly investigation and debate.
In practice, the Catholic principles support a distinction between allowing a position to be argued and debated and endorsing it as the university’s own teaching or official position. The texts affirm the value of autonomy, freedom, rights, and dialogue, but they do not prescribe detailed rules for hiring, discipline, tenure, or dispute resolution. Those questions require attention to the relevant university policies and applicable law, not inference from these principles alone.
So the claim is defensible with a qualification: universities should protect principled dissent as a condition of serious inquiry, while judging arguments by evidence and disciplinary standards; Catholic universities must also preserve their Catholic identity, and Catholic theologians must conduct their work in a manner consistent with theology’s relationship to the Church’s teaching authority. Academic freedom is neither enforced conformity nor unlimited license, but freedom exercised responsibly in the pursuit of truth and the common good.