A Supreme Court decision has allowed a man to continue his studies at the University of Wollongong while a disciplinary process is underway. Photo: Sang Hyun Cho, Pixabay.
A dispute between the University of Wollongong and mature age student Simon Carter has ended up in the Supreme Court.
The NSW Supreme Court found UOW’s decision to deny Mr Carter access to campus and IT systems was not validly made and was of no effect, due to a jurisdictional error arising from a failure to follow its own procedures.
Mr Carter escalated the matter after he was denied access to the university campus and IT systems, preventing him from re-enrolling in his postgraduate medical studies.
The Honourable Justice Hament Dhanji heard Mr Carter was banned after a lengthy period of contentious interactions between himself and members of staff at the university.
In his judgement, Justice Dhanji said that in 2025 Mr Carter came to believe university employees had falsely or inaccurately reported his performance in clinical examinations, and that these reports had disadvantaged him.
He made a number of complaints in response, and was granted a leave of absence from his studies for the second half of 2025, with the intention to recommence his course from the beginning in 2026.
The court heard in early August 2025 a number of staff and students made complaints to the Safe and Respectful Communities (SARC) team about Mr Carter’s conduct, and six allegations were brought against him.
The primary investigating officer (PIO) of SARC alleged Mr Carter on multiple occasions used his UOW mail account to send emails to UOW staff members that were offensive, defamatory and harassing, that he wilfully disobeyed reasonable directives given by UOW staff to cease contact with the Graduate School of Medicine (GSM) about his complaints and that he also used his UOW mail account to make vexatious claims against UOW staff.
She also alleged Mr Carter engaged in offensive, specifically sexist, conduct on the UOW Med Class Facebook Messenger chat, and made threats to multiple female UOW students via Facebook Messenger following being removed from the UOW Med Class Facebook Messenger group chat.
It is alleged that Mr Carter made legal threats in relation to defamation and financial welfare.
Following these allegations, a senior manager of SARC wrote to the university’s vice-chancellor recommending a temporary block to the plaintiff’s access to the electronic systems of the university and to the university itself.
On 29 January 2026 the university decided to continue the block in the same terms, after a finding by an external investigator that two of the six allegations against Mr Carter were substantiated.
Mr Carter initiated court proceedings to overturn the block while the university’s disciplinary process is underway, as the block prevented him from continuing his studies as planned.
The university argued that if Mr Carter was successful in the disciplinary process he would be supported to continue his studies via enrolment on or before 31 March 2026, and that the Graduate School of Medicine would make accommodations to help him catch up.
Justice Dhanji was skeptical about what, if any, accommodations could be made to enable Mr Carter to catch up with nine missed weeks of a medical degree.
He said despite the finding that at least two of the six allegations against Mr Carter were established, the university could not prohibit him from continuing his studies without final findings through proper process that included Mr Carter’s participation.
“[Mr Carter] has repeatedly sought to obtain particulars of the allegations so that he might provide a defence to them,” Justice Dhanji said.
“All that should have happened some time ago.
“Also significant … is that on entering the 2026 academic year to study the first component of the graduate degree, [Mr Carter] will necessarily be placed in a different cohort of students.
“Any concerns with respect to his relationships with students from the 2025 cohort is thereby, if not eliminated, certainly very significantly diminished.
“[Mr Carter] has now been through a lengthy process through the university and now through the court.
“That has, no doubt, been stressful and difficult for him. He will be aware that any conduct by him outside the norms of what is expected is very likely to result in adverse consequences to him and a potential repeat of the stressful situation he has found himself in over these past months.”
Justice Dhanji ordered that Mr Carter’s access to the university campus and IT systems be reinstated, and his studies not be impeded in any way.
UOW was ordered to pay Mr Carter’s costs.
A great article, Jeremy. A key step in Wollongong’s growth as a viable alternative to living in… View