Prof Colin Harvey QUB logo row - university defends academic after legal letter demands action

On Wednesday last week QUB law Professor Colin Harvey tweeted that he would soon publish a report entitled ‘Making the Case for Irish Unity in the EU’. An image of the report shows the QUB logo on the front cover.

On Thursday DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson tweeted that he would be raising the use of the logo with QUB President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Greer on Friday, adding: "Our universities should be above partisan politics".

This morning QUB issued a statement defending Prof Harvey’s academic freedom – but still remained silent on whether it had authorised use of the logo.

Speaking after discussions with Prof Greer on Friday, Sir Jeffrey said that he had "a very constructive meeting" with QUB, which he said had assured him that the "matter was being dealt with".

However, on Saturday Prof Harvey tweeted to Sir Jeffrey that he had "requested and received advance written approval from QUB for the use of the logo".

Then this morning, law firm KRW Law issued a statement repeating that Prof Harvey had been given official permission to use the logo.

"Approval for the use of the University logo was explicitly sought in advance and was definitively authorised, by the appropriate authority in QUB," it said. "We are surprised and disappointed that this explicit authority has not been publicly acknowledged in recent discourse surrounding the report."

It added that "following a sustained campaign of intimidation and harassment over several years, we expect the University to issue a definitive public statement in support of Professor Colin Harvey".

Shortly afterwards QUB responded by issuing a brief statement defending Prof Harvey's freedom of thought and expression.

It said: "Earlier in the year, the University management made contact with the PSNI, who now have ongoing engagement with the University security team to ensure the safety and welfare of all our staff, and a member of the University Management team has ongoing contact with Professor Harvey," it said.

"The University strongly supports freedom of thought and expression within a framework of respect for the rights of other persons. Academic Freedom is enshrined as a guiding principle in the University's Charter and Statute. The University fully supports the right of its academics to publish work and express academic opinion within this framework."

However the QUB statement still did not say whether it had authorised use of its logo on the report, which the News Letter had sought clarity on since Friday morning.

This afternoon QUB told the News Letter that “Professor Harvey went through the official channels for the University logo”. However, it has still to confirm that it then granted him permission to use the logo.

Sinn Féin MLA Caoimhe said today that “ongoing threats and abuse towards Professor Colin Harvey are dangerous, outrageous and an attack on academic freedom and expression".

Then she too called on QUB to "publicly acknowledge permission to use the university logo on publications by Professor Harvey was sought and granted".

Prof Harvey and Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and QUB have been invited to comment.