A University of Melbourne law professor who faced attempted dismissal after a leaked email warning that “‘Blak’ activists” were driving Melbourne Law School towards “destruction” and turning it into an “ideological re-education camp” has settled his discrimination case, with the proceedings dismissed by consent.
The university moved to dismiss Professor Eric Descheemaeker after the message, written in response to an announcement that an Indigenous-led advisory firm had been commissioned to undertake a “cultural safety” review, was leaked and circulated on noticeboards around the Parkville campus and on social media in 2025.
In the email, originally sent in August 2023 to Professor Matthew Harding, the then dean of Melbourne Law School, Descheemaeker said that “[c]elebrating the ‘noble savage’ is already the main, if not exclusive, thing MLS appears to exist for – with just a bit of space to spare for every possible sexual or gendered minority vying for claims to victimhood”.
Having described the direction of travel as “exceedingly sad”, he added: “I joined what I thought was a world-class law faculty; I wake up in an ideological re-education camp with incredibly parochial concerns”.
Descheemaeker, a legal philosopher who is also a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford, went on to warn there was “absolutely no end to where ‘Blak’ activists are meaning to take us – except destruction”. Elsewhere, referring to activists, he wrote:
“They have made us start every meeting with ritual prayers. Their (non-existing) claims to land are now ‘acknowledged’ about every 10 feet in our corridors. They want me to teach that Australian law is only ‘settler law’ and that there exists a rich body of ‘indigenous law’ alongside (what are indigenous private-law remedies, I wonder. Ritual spearings?).
“Now they clearly want to police every aspect of what we do, say, teach (or not do, not say, not teach). What is the purpose of this [cultural safety] review? … To tell us that every time we do not concern ourselves with their egoistic preoccupations, we commit genocide (the “silence is violence” argument)? This madness has to come to an end.”
In a June 2025 email to all MLS staff, the current dean, Professor Michelle Foster, acknowledged that “sensitive correspondence” from August 2023 had recently been posted on campus noticeboards and on social media. “I acknowledge that staff and students who read the notices may have been offended or upset by its contents,” she wrote.
Foster also said the university had taken immediate steps to remove the material and was investigating how an email sent to her predecessor had come to be circulated more widely, adding that she remained committed to “cultural safety” at MLS and supported the “important work under way in this regard”.
Descheemaeker then brought proceedings alleging the university took adverse action against him – including by suspending him – because of his “political opinion”, court documents show.
At a hearing in September, Descheemaeker’s legal team argued that the university had moved to expel him for political expression after uncovering emails it alleged were racist, the court heard. His barrister, Dimitri Ternovski, said the leaked August 2023 email used “colourful language” to push back against “identity politics” being injected into the Melbourne Law School curriculum, and was meant only for the dean’s eyes.
In that context, Ternovski argued, the remarks were political opinions rather than racism, and said any disciplinary action would be inconsistent with the university’s Academic Freedom of Expression Policy, clause 4.3 of which notes: “The liberty to speak freely extends to making statements on political matters, including policies affecting higher education, and to criticism of the University and its actions.”
The barrister also relied on section 351 of the Fair Work Act 2009 – Australia’s national workplace relations law – which prohibits an employer from taking adverse action against an employee because of protected attributes, including political opinion.
Although the matter was due to be heard in the Federal Circuit and Family Court in February 2026, court documents show the case has now been finalised and dismissed by consent.
A university spokesperson confirmed that the proceedings had been dismissed by the court, but would not say whether Descheemaeker remains employed at Melbourne Law School.
The cultural safety review had been commissioned after public comments by Dr Eddie Cubillo, who resigned as a part-time associate dean and senior fellow at Melbourne Law School in 2023. After tendering his resignation in September 2023, Cubillo – a Larrakia, Wadjigan and Central Arrernte man and former Northern Territory discrimination commissioner – claimed that the law school was the “most culturally unsafe place I’ve worked”.
Earlier that year, Cubillo had delivered a speech about his encounters, as an Indigenous man, with racism in the academy. After his resignation, students put up posters throughout Melbourne Law School reproducing excerpts from the address and attacking the “white privilege” they said persisted in tertiary institutions.
This article forms part of the Committee for Academic Freedom’s monitoring of developments in higher education across the Anglosphere. To receive monthly updates and analysis on cases affecting academic freedom, click the link and subscribe to our newsletter.