Professor who claimed ‘Blak’ activists were leading law school to ‘destruction’ to leave University of Melbourne

Exclusive: Dr Eric Descheemaeker and university have agreed he will leave his job to pursue other opportunities, email to staff says

A University of Melbourne law professor who wrote an email saying the institution was dictated to by “‘Blak’ activists” who were leading it to “destruction” will leave the university.

The university tried to sack Dr Eric Descheemaeker after the 2023 email to the then dean of Melbourne law school (MLS), in which he claimed it was turning into an “ideological re-education camp”, was leaked and posted around the Parkville campus last year.

Descheemaeker then sued the university for discrimination, alleging the attempt to expel him in July was because of his political opinion.

Guardian Australia revealed earlier this month that the legal dispute had been settled.

In an email to MLS staff on Friday afternoon, the law school’s dean, Prof Michelle Foster, confirmed Descheemaeker and the university had resolved their dispute, including the federal court proceeding, on confidential terms.

“Professor Descheemaeker and the University have agreed that Professor Descheemaeker will leave his employment with the University to pursue other opportunities,” she said in an email viewed by Guardian Australia.

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Foster said the university and Descheemaeker were in dispute as to whether the academic breached the university’s policies by “making certain communications”.

“The University alleged that Professor Descheemaeker engaged in serious misconduct by making these communications. Professor Descheemaeker denied the allegations,” she said.

The university tried to dismiss Descheemaeker after an email he sent in response to the announcement of a cultural safety review at the university was leaked. In the email, Descheemaeker said MLS was “celebrating the ‘noble savage’” and likened it to an “ideological re-education camp”.

He wrote that there was “absolutely no end to where ‘Blak’ activists are meaning to take us – except destruction”.

Descheemaeker alleged the University of Melbourne had taken adverse action against him by suspending his employment due to his “political opinion”, court documents show.

In a court hearing last September, Descheemaeker’s legal team argued the university had attempted to expel him over his political expression after it unearthed allegedly racist emails, the court heard.

Descheemaeker’s barrister, Dimitri Ternovski, said the professor’s comments in the emails were political opinions and were not racist. He said his client’s correspondence was protected by the university’s academic freedom of expression policy.

Ternovski said the leaked August 2023 email used “colourful language” to push back against “identity politics” increasingly being injected into MLS’s curriculum and was meant only for the dean’s eyes.

Only a small part of the university’s defence was heard in September as both sides agreed to an adjournment.

Marc Felman KC, representing the university, said there was no prima facie case that Descheemaeker’s proposed dismissal was unlawful. He described the case as “hopeless”.

The university commissioned the cultural safety review in 2023 – the same year Indigenous academic Dr Eddie Cubillo resigned from his role as an associate dean and senior fellow at MLS after public complaints over institutional racism at the faculty.

Descheemaeker’s legal team was contacted for comment.