Apology to Cheryl Overs from Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse University of New South Wales

Source
Jane Mulroney
Download this resource
Year
2004

Apology to Cheryl Overs

From: Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse
University of New South Wales
clearinghouse@unsw.edu.au

To: cherylovers@hotmail.com
Subject: Apology from Clearinghouse
Date: Friday September 3, 2004

Dear Cheryl,

Thank you for your email.  We have removed the conference paper written by Sheila Jeffries and apologise for any distress that the article may have caused you.

The Clearinghouse makes every effort to ensure that the material on our website is factually correct and does contribute to respectful debate concerning issues about violence against women.

In this case we took immediate action to remove the paper without delay. I wish to draw your attention to the fact that both your emails were received by us within a 12-hour timeframe that was out of office hours, leaving us no capability of responding to your request any earlier.  I understand that you were keen for action to be taken seriously and as soon as possible. I believe we have done this and respect your position on this.

You raise important issues about our responsibility as a Clearinghouse. We review every item that goes on the pages developed by the Clearinghouse. The paper you have referred to was part of a collection of conference papers that we provide access to via our website. As with all material on our website which are not Clearinghouse publications we are keen to emphasise, by disclaimer, that the opinions expressed in the conference papers do not necessarily represent the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse. Whilst we review every item added to the website, we cannot ever hope to verify everything and errors or omissions remain the responsibility of the author(s).

As a consequence of bringing this paper to our attention, the Clearinghouse will review its position in the future about publishing conference papers.

There are two important issues that as a Clearinghouse we take very seriously and it is always a matter of a balance; namely:

  • That users of the site need access to information available in the public domain; and,
  • That there is always debate about decisions that result in the censorship of material.

Once again, I thank you for bringing this to our attention as we always need to be reminded about standards we must continually apply to providing access to information concerning violence against women.

Yours sincerely,

Jane Mulroney
Director
Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse
University of NSW
Sydney NSW 2052
Ph: (02) 9385 2991

You can download this 2 page PDF resource above. This resource is in English.