One of Australia’s foremost legal associations has pushed back calls to “cancel” Sir Samuel Griffith, a pivotal figure in Australia’s history, as it argued doing so would undermine the nation’s rule of law.
It comes after Indigenous artist Fiona Foley proposed to removed Griffith’s name from Griffith University and instead call the institution ‘Dundalli University.’ Dundalli is the name of an Indigenous warrior who led the resistance to European settlement in South-East Queensland.
The suggestion was a response to historian Henry Reynolds’ controversial book Truth-Telling, published in 2021. In his book, Reynold accused Griffith of being an “enabler” of massacres by not doing enough to prevent the clash between Europeans and Indigenous clans in Australia.
However, the Samuel Griffith Society, which is set up to encourage greater understanding of Australia’s Constitution, defended Griffith’s legacy, arguing “Australians continue to enjoy its benefits, more than a century after his death.”
Xavier Boffa, the chief executive of the society, wrote in a newsletter sent to its member on Tuesday that “we can ill-afford to allow moves to ‘cancel’ Griffith to go unanswered.”
“To do so risks fundamentally weakening our Constitution and everything that it represents—the principle of responsible government, our federal system, the separation of powers and the rule of law,” Boffa said.
