What should you do when a complaint is made against you in a university? Ask plenty of questions and record the interview.

In August last year I was taken from La Trobe university to the Austin hospital with a suspected heart attack. Between August 2025 and February this year I was prescribed anti-depressant medication, used four scripts for Valium, and took time away from my studies. I now limit interactions with people in my department.

I am a PhD student at La Trobe. This article is about the handling of a complaint against me last year.

This article is a personal account which describes my experience, and the effects on me. I have taken reasonable steps to de-identified people, while keeping events clear. Towards the end I suggest what to do if you are subject to a complaints procedure in a university.

How it began

I started the PhD in February 2025. I am deliberately not identifying the department I am enrolled in.

Shortly after starting, I had regular contact with another person, whom I’ll call Samantha or “Sam.” I am deliberately not stating in what capacity I first met her.

At the time of these events Sam used she/they in her emails and described herself as non-binary (This is a topic on which I have no opinion, and no reason to develop an opinion.)

I use “she” in this article as Sam used it in her email signature.

Over the next two months Sam and I had frequent conversations about various political matters. These included whether Russians are really Europeans (in her view, “No”), current events in the US, relations between her country of birth and one of its neighbours, and whether she should move money out of the stock market option in her superannuation when Donald Trump was causing volatility in the stock market. (I’m an ex-economist).

Sam comes across as a very forthright person. On one occasion she said, “I’m gonna say it. Donald Trump changes his mind like a woman on a period.”

During our conversations, Sam bought up a few gender-related topics. She said that people in her country of birth expected women to be better at maths than men, because they supposedly have better attention to detail. She complained about male students dominating tutorials. She complained about the lack of women in a certain type of conference, and that when women were included as speakers, they mostly spoke on “How can we get more women into [discipline X]?”

There was nothing about these conversations that seemed to be particularly different to thousands of conversations with hundreds of fellow left-wing people over decades.

Before last year’s federal election, Sam approached me and another student urging us to vote for the local Greens candidate.

I said I was one of a dozen to 20 people who resigned from the local Greens branch over the selection of that candidate, and, with her agreement, I forwarded her some blog articles which were critical of the internal culture of the Greens, particularly how the organization had changed in recent years from being focused on the environment, to constant infighting about gender-related issues.

Subsequently Sam lodged a complaint against me with Safer Community, a unit within the university that investigates complaints about sexual harassment, racial prejudice or threats by students against others. I was shocked.

The letter informing me of the complaint alleged that I had used “queerphobic speech,” but contained no details. I asked for more information (1 May). The only extra information I was given was that I had supposedly asked Sam out. No specific details about that were supplied.

Someone from Safer Community (whom I’ll call ‘Linda’) interviewed me on 8 May. Linda described herself as a “senior coordinator.” Linda summarised Sam’s claims as being that I was “Queerphobic.” I don’t know if this was Sam’s word or Linda’s. I got Linda to record that interview, and I also recorded it so there is a clear record of what was said. A person from Student Advocacy (“Kim”) sat in on the interview, and took notes, but did not participate. Kim later supplied me with her notes.

My description of this interview is based squarely on the recording and is confirmed by the notes Kim took.

For those unfamiliar with the law on recording conversations in Victoria, the key provisions are in sections 6 to 11 of the Surveillance Devices Act 1999. You can’t record a private conversation in which you are NOT a participant, but you CAN record a conversation in which you ARE a participant. (That is not legal advice applying to a specific situation of yours. If you have a specific situation, get legal advice.)

What am I accused of?

The first issue Linda raised was that Sam claimed that I was “constantly” questioning her pronouns, but Linda gave no examples of what I had supposedly said about pronouns. I only recall one conversation in which I described the difference between first, second and third person pronouns and said that nobody “addresses” anybody by third person pronouns. (I did freelance editing for a few years.) Linda was unaware of this conversation so I infer Sam did not describe it to her, so I believe it couldn’t have been what was complained about. I don’t know what other conversations we supposedly had, but one can’t have (say) ten conversations about the difference between first, second and third person pronouns. They are just not that interesting. As a result, I didn’t know what conversation was being referred to or what particular thing I said about pronouns that was being complained about.

Linda said Sam also claimed I was “constantly” questioning her gender identity, but Linda gave me no example of anything I supposedly said about non-binaryness.

The next issue raised was that I had criticised the internal culture of the Greens, in particular the on-going internal disagreements about gender identity. My blog articles definitely did do this.

In a passage Linda read out to me, Sam also said that I had asked her “some weird questions” (plural) about the safety of women. Sam had said that during the overthrow of a certain dictator, her mother (or maybe grandmother) had to step over puddles of blood in the street, and that people from that culture just expect the world to be a more dangerous place than do English speakers. She said, “I think about personal safety every day, but I don’t know if that’s because I’m a woman, or because I come from [country X].” Apart from a reference to this conversation, there were no specific examples of “some weird questions” (plural) I supposedly asked.

Sam has studied some psychology, and on one occasion Sam and I discussed what psychologists call the “big five” personality traits, and how they affect voting. I sent Sam a psychology journal article by Anna Vedel about how these personality traits were correlated with students’ fields of study. (“Big five personality differences across majors: a systematic review.”)

According to Linda, Sam believed I sent the article to prove that men and women were naturally suited to different jobs. This claim surprised me, so I sent Linda the article. It does not mention jobs or employment. According to Linda, Sam said that I subsequently asked her what she thought of the article. I do not recall any follow up conversation, and do not believe one occurred. I find it hard to imagine how a follow up conversation would have proceeded if she thought the article was about men, women and jobs, when it was about measurable personality traits and students’ fields of study.

My past dealings with gay and trans people

I’m 71 years old.

Growing up, I had one family member who was gay and one who is bi-sexual, and in the late 70s and early 80s they were mixing in the social circles of the very small number of drag/gay/trans cabarets in Melbourne. So, in the early 80s, I went to some of those venues with my relatives and their friends. I also met them at bar-b-qs at my mother’s house.

As a result, I was meeting gay and trans people 50 years ago, and have often had gay and sometimes trans friends. I’m still friends with the woman who was my girlfriend in 1974-75 and she remembers meeting trans people at my mother’s bar-b-qs back then. Consequently, the accusation of “Queerphobia” took me by surprise.

Again, What am I accused of?

Linda did not give me any specific examples of what I allegedly said that was ‘queerphobic,’ nor any standard by which ‘queerphobia’ was to be judged.

I suggested that in order to be judged ‘queerphobic”, I would have to have exhibited hatred, hostility or prejudice against some category of queer persons. Linda gave no response to this.

During the interview, Linda raised a suggestion I had made to Sam about continuing a conversation over lunch. (The university’s central square contains several food outlets.) Linda said that this had been understood as an invitation to go off campus, and I was “asking her out.” I felt surprised. I’ve done four degrees there, and I’ve never gone off campus to get lunch once.

I asked Linda, “Where were we going to go, supposedly?” She replied, “I’m not sure.” “OK,” I answered, sounding a little fed up in the recording.

I felt puzzled that the complaint may have been influenced by my criticisms of the Greens, but Linda said Sam didn’t tell her how the Greens came to figure in the conversations or that it was Sam who raised the Greens. In my view, for Linda to understand what had happened, she should have had the materials I sent Sam, and understand how the Greens first entered our conversation.

On 9 May I emailed Linda a 5,000-word summary of my conversations with Sam, the emails and blog articles, and the Anna Vedel article.

They also contained material that, in my view, reflected my supportive attitudes towards gay and trans people. I suggested that in my opinion, it was inconsistent to suggest that I had been accepting of gay and trans people for 50 years but was somehow opposed to non-binaryness.

I also sent two further emails (14 and 16 May) asking for more details of the accusations. None were provided.

The blog articles

The blog articles I sent to Sam contained the following passages.

In one of the articles (“How to understand the trans wars in the Victorian Greens”), from 2024, I referred to having a trans-male friend, whom I originally met as a woman.

I wrote, “I don’t spend my time asking myself “Is my friend really a male?” because I would have no use for the answer. There’s nothing that we do when we meet up that crucially depends on the definition of male, so where would be the benefit to me in spending mental energy on this? If he has achieved a happier life by transitioning, (which seems to be the case) I’m glad for him. Similarly, I have no view on the question “are transwomen really women?” because I have no use for the answer.” (end quote).

In my view, this does not exhibit hatred, hostility or prejudice against queer people:

In the same article I wrote: “We can, and should, fight for equality of trans people in employment and housing, insist on them being treated equally in their interactions with the medical system, and getting equal treatment by the police when they come with complaints. If a court case arises where, say, a trans person has been denied rental accommodation because of being trans, and a go-fund-me account is set up to pay for their legal costs, I’ll donate. These are legitimate social justice issues. Nobody in the Greens would say otherwise.” (end quote)

Later in that article I wrote, “Adults can do what they like, and I support their right to live as they wish.”

In an article titled, “The Greens are Practicing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in Reverse,” I described my interactions with gay and trans people in the 1970s and wrote, “The attitude of the Christian Churches towards gay and trans people was a major factor in me ceasing to be a Christian in February 1979.” (end quote)

In the same article, I referred to seeing a notice on one of the notice boards from a trans student at La Trobe complaining about the (supposed) lack of gender-neutral toilets on campus. I wrote to the Director of Infrastructure conveying what the student had written. (In fact, there are numerous gender-neutral toilets on campus but a new student may not have known where to find the map of them.)

In view of these passages, I found it hard to understand why Sam thought I was ‘queerphobic.’

On 25 May, I complained to the university ombudsman, who referred it back to “James,” the manager of Safer Community. (James and Linda have since left the university.)

In an effort to understand exactly what was alleged about me, I put in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request (27 June) for a copy of the complaint, to see if there were any specific details that Linda had not read out to me. This was rejected. In total I made four written attempts to find out what I was accused of.

James listened to the recording, arranged another interview, (20 June) and apologized (twice) for the way the first interview was conducted. (I recorded my interview with him, and he engaged a speech-to-text program).

Early in the interview (at 4:20 of my recording) I asked about my interview with Linda, “I assume you’ve listened to the recording?” He replied “Yep.”

I include the following brief extract to accurately reflect how the process was explained to me.

James said that it was Safer Community’s normal procedure to provide respondents with specific details of the allegations before the interview.

(At 26:10) “You’re saying that your normal practice would be to provide particulars in writing? Or just on the spot in an interview?”
He said, “No, in writing… if I were asking you to respond to that it would be pretty standard practice that I would offer that before hand so that you would know what you are responding to. I think she should have provided you with more explanation prior. … It is not a proceduraly fair process necessarily to not be given the particulars to respond to beforehand. And that is how I run them.”

He said (At 27:20), “Why this has happened I can only apologise for, and I’m sorry you were put into a position that you felt you were responding to particulars without being given formal notice prior um, … because I don’t want to make a finding if you haven’t been given adequate time and adequate information to respond…” and

(At 30: 55) “I recognize that being put on the spot and being asked to respond to particulars without those particulars being afforded to you beforehand is not standard practice, and it’s not how I would manage the case… and I do apologize.” (end of quote) (Even this slightly misses the point, since my complaint was largely about the LACK of detail.)

James closed the case (11 July) with no findings against me. Sam and I were instructed not to contact each other. This is a standard way of closing complaints.

The result was me never finding out what I said that was claimed to be queerphobic, or even whether ‘queerphobic’ was Sam’s word or Linda’s.

The university has a definition of procedural fairness which includes that respondents need to be told of the accusations against them in sufficient detail and with sufficient time to respond.

When James closed the case, his letter changed the description of the complaint from queerphobic speech (which I thought was a claim that I had said something about non-binaryness) to “implied transphobic speech.” No specific thing I said was identified in the closure letter as “transphobic.” He also added “out of office hours communications” to the description of the complaint. I had sent Sam an email (to her uni email) on a Saturday with a link to an article about a British court decision the previous day which I thought would interest her. However, to my knowledge, it being sent on a Saturday was not part of the complaint, or if it was, it was never raised by Linda. I have never sought or had Sam’s home email or phone number.

At four points in the interview Linda says she is directly reading from Sam’s complaint, so I don’t think any claim that Linda interviewed me about the wrong things could be made.

Staff training

Meanwhile a staff member – I ’ll call her Mandy – made some comments to me encouraging me to “reflect” on my conduct.

On 27 May, in an email to another staff member, copied to me, she wrote: “Notwithstanding Richard’s concerns that relevant information about the conversations / emails was not provided by Sam, and his concern that his comments/emails were misinterpreted by Sam, and noting again that [another staff member] and I are primarily committed to supporting the needs both students, I did still ask Richard to reflect on why this might have happened and whether there might be lessons to learn on his part, too, so that a similar situation with another person might be avoided in the future.” (emphasis added) (end quote)

On 16 June, to me, copied to another staff member: “… there are lessons to be learned about social interaction when that interaction clearly strays into topics that are of fundamental importance to a person’s identity (no matter who raises them).” (Emphasis added.)

And that I should “…think about what is best for you, for Sam, and the cohort.” This was written at a time when, to my knowledge, she did not have access to the original complaint or my reply.

In my view, asking someone to ‘reflect’ on their conduct seems to imply that they have done something requiring reflection, and that they know what it is.

In an email dated 27 July, I said that it was difficult for me to reflect on what I (supposedly) had done, if I didn’t know what it was. I wrote, (a bit sarcastically) “In short, Richard needs to think about what he’s done, and he needs to make sure he doesn’t do it again, even though nobody knows what it is.” I expressed concern that decisions might be made about me using assumptions made simply based on my age.

I am not attributing malice to Mandy: I suspect she thought she was doing a good thing.

At a meeting at a café on campus on 29 July Mandy described her comments as being “general life advice” and denied that she was assuming my guilt, saying “I don’t even know what guilt would mean in these circumstances.” I found this statement surprising, and I did not feel reassured.

On looking at Linda’s bio on Linked In, I discovered that she had been in Safer Community for about a year and claims to have been, at one stage, acting manager. I was surprised, as what occurred in my case seemed to be different from the process James described to me. On 28 July I wrote to every member of the university council urging an outsider be appointed to conduct a review of staff training in Safer Community. I got a reply indicating the section had recently had a regular review, and no new review would be undertaken.

I copied the submission to the manager above James, who assured me that the staff in Safer Communities are well trained. Given my experience, I did not feel convinced, or reassured. In my opinion, if Linda had been in Safer Community a year, and did not follow their normal procedures, something was wrong with the training. In my view, to tell me otherwise was to treat me as somewhat-less-than-intelligent.

The trip to hospital

On 4 August I emailed my thesis supervisor, “I’m probably going back on antidepressants.”

On 11 August, I attended the GP clinic on campus for a routine prescription, and also described having had a tight, heavy feeling in my chest for several weeks, and a burning sensation in my face.

The GP insisted on calling an ambulance, for fear I was having a heart attack. I was taken to the Austin hospital. I was later called back for two days of heart tests, which revealed no physical explanation. I then spent six months on antidepressants and had four scripts for Valium. Later, I had another trip to the Austin with chest pains, and another script for antidepressants and Valium.

On 26 August I wrote to my thesis supervisor that, “If by December, the fallout from this complaint is still affecting me, then I should probably withdraw from the PhD.” Instead, I took three months leave.

The university uses the term “reasonable direction” to mean an order that a person not be in certain buildings, not contact a specific person, or perhaps change from an in-person class to an on-line class. On or about 8 October, Mandy also told me that Safer Community had instructed me not to attend a particular floor of the building which houses my department. I couldn’t find any such instruction in the email trail. On 9 October, Mandy apologised for that claim, but asserted that a “reasonable direction” of some sort had been provided to me in May, but which inadvertently left out the instruction not to be on that floor. I could not identify any such direction in the May correspondence. I went to the university ombudsman on 25 May because Safer Community was not replying to my emails. I felt puzzled that Mandy was accepting statements from Safer Community without sighting documentary proof that their statements were correct.

Shortly thereafter, I received another email from a different staff member saying that they were “relaxing” the prohibition on me being on that floor, on a trial basis, even tho there was no evidence in the emails that I had ever been subject to such a restriction. It appeared that I was on some kind of “probation.” I felt, again, that I was being spoken down to.

What is neutrality?

I have suggested to Mandy in an email that an appropriate model of neutrality is the Australian Electoral Commission. AEC staff do not give advice to candidates or their campaign managers about policies, leaflets or posters in excess of legal requirements. They do not make comments to one candidate or campaign manager that they wouldn’t equally give to another. Mandy gave no comment on my suggestion.

There are regular seminars on Wednesdays in my department, but I have not attended them since August last year. I often get into uni early in the morning, sometimes while it’s still dark, or on the weekend, when there are few people around. My principal supervisor and I have most of our meetings in a Chinese cafe on campus, or off campus. I now have minimal contact with people from the department I’m studying in. Someone at the student counselling service described me as being in a state of “hyper-vigilance.”

I have described these events to a number of people (without identifying Mandy or Sam). Those outside La Trobe generally express shock and dismay. Reactions of people within La Trobe appeared more varied, with many not even looking surprised. In my view, the lack of surprise is disturbing.

Some policy suggestions

The purpose of this account is to illustrate how complaint processes like this operate in practice, so that they can be better understood and, where necessary, improved.

That James later apologised for the way the first interview was conducted made me think about the importance of staff training to conduct what can be very stressful interviews. There are 1.59 million university students in Australia. It is important that complaint processes be carried out competently.

It seems to me that there is also an opportunity for some staff training, especially about neutrality. Staff do not normally have access to the original complaint, nor the response to it. In my view, once staff begin giving ‘advice,’ even if it is well intentioned, assumptions may enter into the process, and other people may infer those assumptions from what we say.

In my view, universities should give clearer guidance to staff about maintaining neutrality, and what neutrality looks like. I suspect that when senior academic and administrative staff are moved into new positions, they get no training on how to deal with these situations.

I also think that if a complaint is so general that it’s difficult to work out what is being complained about, and there are few supporting details, it should be dismissed and not even be put to the respondent.

Most on-line complaint forms ask the complainant what they want to achieve from their complaint: e.g. an apology, conciliation, disciplinary action against someone, or a change in processes. Linda did not tell me what Sam wanted to achieve from lodging the complaint. Hence, when the complaint was closed, I did not understand what outcome the process had been intended to achieve.

La Trobe has adopted the Model Code on Free Speech at Australian Universities, (written by Justice Robert French) which defends the right of students to comment on their university (presumably including its complaint processes), and to not be disadvantaged because of their political beliefs. In my view, universities may wish to consider how complaint processes interact with political or ideological disagreements between students. In some circumstances, strongly held disagreements on social or political issues could be miss-perceived or framed as issues of personal safety.

In my opinion, Safer Community should have clear guidance on how to recognise and respond to such situations (including when NOT to become involved in disagreements about political or social issues). False or misguided claims about “safety” should not be used to override rights to free speech. The internal fights in the Greens have been extensively discussed in the media, and to my knowledge, no one has been rendered ‘unsafe’ because of this. In my opinion, training on the Model Code on Free Speech should be incorporated into Safer Community training.

Jonathan Haidt, an American Social Psychology professor at NYU has written extensively about the upsurge in belief since about 2010 among American college students that opinions that contradict their own opinions, and ideas which they find uncomfortable, make them “unsafe,” confusing emotional discomfort with actually being unsafe. (See links below.)

As I prepared this article, I described these events to a lawyer who works in a government department, and I said, “You can’t imagine that this sequence of events would be even possible.” He replied, “I can imagine it very easily, and the two places it would happen would be a university and a government department.”

Importantly, I am concerned that if nothing changes, nothing prevents another person with a complaint against them having a similar experience to me.

Some personal reflections

This experience used up a lot of my time, affected my studies, involved me in expenses seeing a psychologist, caused me to consider dropping out of the PhD, spend four separate days at the Austin Hospital, and led me to limit my contact with people from my department.

Most people want to feel they are being dealt with (i) ethically, (ii) honestly, (iii) competently (iv) that their intelligence not being insulted (v) that they are not being spoken down to and (vi) that they are not being told things which contradict the evidence of their own senses or experiences. If I had known what was going to happen last year, I would probably not have enrolled in the PhD.

I dislike the time that this has taken up, but I can better defend myself than the average 20-year-old, so if I can’t advocate for change, a 20-year-old will find it difficult.

A few bits of advice

So, if you are involved in a university, and you have an allegation made against you, what should you do?

First, ask for details. What exactly am I supposed to have said, when did I say it, what led up to the supposed conversation (because context can matter), and what documents are there to support the claim? Ask for the answers 2-3 days before the interview. Don’t agree to be interviewed before you have been told what you are supposed to have done. Re-read the email trail. If something new is bought up in the interview do not respond. Tell them you’ll respond in writing in two or three days.

The most important thing is to tell them (politely) that you will record the interviewand then do it, politely, whether they like it or not. Do not assume that anybody knows what they are doing. Recording both interviews was the best thing I did. If litigation ever arises out of this article, the recordings can be played in court. If, prior to that, Linda or Sam wish to FOI them, I will not object.

In my case James was able to listen to the recording of the interview with Linda and said that it was not conducted in accordance with the university’s normal procedure.

Without a recording, any dispute about what happened may end up as your word against somebody else’s. That is a situation better avoided.

(end of article)

Appendix: Responses by the Uni and by individuals referred to in this article.

On 23 May 2026, my lawyers wrote to La Trobe university’s legal division and the people referred to as Sam, Linda and Mandy and gave them opportunities to comment on a draft of this article, to point out any claimed factual errors. The university did not object to the article being published, but declined to comment. Mandy did not respond.

Linda, from Safer Community, claimed that she had recently spoken to James and that James had denied listening to the recording of my interview with Linda and denied having apologized for the way she conducted the interview. Linda claimed that my comments were my recollections and were “disputed.” In fact, my draft made clear that the quotes from James were taken directly from my recording of the interview with him. I have inserted a couple of extra paragraphs to make clear that James clearly agrees that he has listened to the recording of the interview between Linda and I and he clearly apologizes, twice, for the way the interview was conducted. The quotes included in the article are exact quotes from the recording. I do not consider the maters to be “disputed.”

Linda expressed concerns that her linked-in bio was irrelevant. I have retained the reference to this bio as the fact that she in Safer Community for about a year, was a “senior coordinator,” and claimed to have been acting manager, is relevant to the question of the state of training in Safer Community.

I have removed a reference to Sam’s role at La Trobe and to how I first met her. I have retained enough detail that the reader can still understand the complaint as Linda explained it to me.

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Jonathan Haidt, “Universities must choose one Telos [purpose] Truth or Social Justice” https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/one-telos-truth-or-social-justice-2/

And, Jonathan Haidt (pronounced “height”) “The Coddling of the American Mind” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/