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Sacked Maori art historian wins job back

An art history lecturer made redundant from the University of Auckland has won his job back in a legal decision that describes his feeling of humiliation after being dismissed.

Maori and Pacific art specialist Dr Rangihiroa Panoho - the first Maori to get a PhD in art history - was also awarded $25,000 in compensation under an Employment Relations Authority determination.

The ruling came a month after a high-profile ruling ordering the university to pay senior political and international relations lecturer Paul Buchanan $66,000 in lost wages and damages.

Dr Buchanan, who wrote an intemperate email to a foreign student, was not reinstated but he is appealing against that part of the determination.

In the new case, authority member Leon Robinson determined that Dr Panoho was not treated fairly or sensitively and the university's vice-chancellor Professor Stuart McCutcheon "failed to act as a good employer".
Read entire article at http://www.nzherald.co.nz