After the discussion,the teenager approached another member of the panel to say that she related to that speaker’s experience of racism,the teen’s father said.
“When she said that,the vice chancellor licks her finger with saliva and rubs it on my daughter’s face and says something to the effect of ‘Oh you’re brown,yes you’re right,it’s not coming off’,” the father said.
He rejected a police statement that emphasised there was no physical harm to the alleged victim. “In this day and age,saliva on someone’s face,is that not an injury?”
The father said his daughter had been withdrawn since the incident and had gone from being a straight-A student to not wishing to attend school.
“The UNE council are the ones that need to be put on the spot,” he said. “The public need to know how the UNE is dragging their heels. For five months there has been no concern whatsoever for my daughter.”
The University of New England has resisted calls by Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall,Labor’s tertiary education spokesman Tim Crakenthorp and the National Tertiary Education Union to stand down Heywood pending the outcome of the court proceedings.
The university and Heywood declined to comment on Thursday.