Photo: RNZ
Associate professor Siouxsie Wiles says she's "absolutely delighted" by a ruling which will see Auckland University pay her $205,059.94. towards her legal fees.
It comes after the Employment Court ruled last year that the university breached its obligations to protect Wiles as harassment intensified during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, it did not find the university had breached Wiles' academic freedom, or claims related to Te Tiriti.
Wiles told Morning Report the costs were meant to be a negotiation with the university "and it's really frustrating that they didn't do that negotiation in a way that's really fair, instead they threatened to come after me for something like $575,000 of their cost".
She had offered to accept less a year ago than what the university now has to pay, she said.
"It's very disappointing that we had to actually go back to the judge to deal with this."
Wiles said she has spent about $600,000 on legal fees in total, including GST and the interest she will pay on bank loans.
"This has been going on a long time and access to justice is very, very expensive."
She said it was "astonishing" that the university chose to fight the case and said it spent well over $1 million on doing so.
Wiles said she was still subject to harassment but "it's not as bad as it used to be".
"There are people who just won't let this go, they've really almost build a whole identity around the abuse and harassment that they are making out on other people."
Wiles said she did not have any regrets.
"We saved thousands of lives, people need to remember that, that our early experience of the pandemic was really really different than other countries. You know, New York was... digging mass graves... we saved lots and lots of lives and I don't think you can regret that."
In a statement, Auckland University said the ruling about costs concluded the legal action and followed the Court of Appeal's recent decision to decline Wiles' application to appeal aspects of the Employment Court decision.
