Academic says she was 'disinvited' as conference speaker because of ties to Thum Ping Tjin; NUS says she 'didn't make final line-up'

SINGAPORE — An academic from the Philippines has accused the National University of Singapore (NUS) of "disinviting" her from speaking at a conference because she is married to a historian who has butted heads with the Government here.

In response to TODAY's queries, NUS said that the details were "still evolving" at the time and she "did not make the final line-up of speakers".

The academic, Dr Sol Iglesias, told TODAY that the university had invited her back in August as a speaker for a specific slot at the event, set to be held in January. She provided correspondence supporting this claim between herself and the university.

For its part, NUS told TODAY on Nov 23 that the details of the event were “still evolving” until Nov 2 when Dr Iglesias was told by NUS that she did not make the final panel of speakers.

The university did not reply to follow-up questions on why flight and accommodation details had already been discussed with Dr Iglesias — as seen by TODAY in the email correspondence between the two parties — and why an NUS staff member had apparently told her the confirmed event dates.

Dr Iglesias, 46, is an assistant professor of political science at the University of the Philippines Diliman, based in Quezon City. She has a doctorate and a Masters’ degree from NUS, where she also earned a few academic awards, according to her curriculum vitae. 

She is also the wife of Singaporean historian Thum Ping Tjin. Dr Thum, founder of Southeast Asian e-zine New Naratif, was issued correction directions under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act in May 2020 for allegations he made about the fake-news law itself.

Prior to that, he had crossed swords with Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam in 2018 during a Parliamentary Select Committee for Deliberate Online Falsehoods that was convened to study the problem of online falsehoods and how to deal with them.

CONFERENCE DETAILS ‘STILL EVOLVING’: NUS

In a post on online publishing platform Medium dated Nov 11, Dr Iglesias said that she was “disinvited… without any official explanation” from NUS to speak at an event entitled “Global Research Forum: Towards a Public Asian Studies” scheduled for January.

In the post, she wrote that a colleague from NUS had invited her in March and later confirmed the dates, draft programme and other issues before calling her on Nov 2, saying that her participation had been rejected, without further explanation.

“My colleague told me that the only reason he could think of was my association with PJ (her husband), but he did not know for certain,” she wrote in the post, without naming the colleague.

Dr Iglesias said that while what had happened to her was “relatively minor”, she was making it public to speak out against what she claimed was “part of a broader pattern" at NUS and "to respect and uphold academic freedom”.

In reply to TODAY’s questions regarding Dr Iglesias’ post on Medium, an NUS spokesperson said on Nov 23: “Dr Sol Iglesias was approached as a possible panel speaker at the Global Research Forum, planned for January 2024.

“Up to earlier this month, the conference details were still evolving. On Nov 2, 2023, we reached out to Dr Iglesias to convey that she did not make the final line-up of speakers,” the spokesperson added.

NUS’ statement did not answer TODAY’s queries on the reason behind the disinvitation, whether it had anything to do with Dr Thum as claimed by Dr Iglesias, the university’s guidelines when it comes to inviting speakers for an event and which other speakers, if any, were disinvited.

ACADEMIC’S TIMELINE OF EVENTS

In exchanges with TODAY over email on Nov 24, after NUS issued its statement, Dr Iglesias gave a timeline from when she was apparently invited by her colleague to the point when she was dropped from the event, supported by some email correspondence.

Dr Iglesias said that her contact from NUS had asked her over email in March if she was interested to take part in a conference organised by the NUS Asian studies department. She redacted the person’s name in the emails shown to TODAY, but said that he is a faculty member of the Southeast Asian Studies department.

“On June 14, he wrote that the proposed panel had been accepted, and that the conference organisers wanted confirmation that the speakers, myself included, were able to come based on two sets of tentative dates,” she said. 

A follow-up email was sent to her in August to put her in touch with another NUS staff member to discuss flight and accommodation matters. The NUS staff member asked Dr Iglesias for her personal details and travelling documents, among other things.

In October, the NUS staff member told Dr Iglesias that the event dates were confirmed, the time she was scheduled to speak, and that he would inform her “once HR (human resource department) gives the go-ahead”.

Dr Iglesias told TODAY: “My personal information was exchanged for purposes of reimbursement, and a final go-ahead to book the flights was all I was waiting for.”

On Nov 2, an email showed Dr Iglesias’ unnamed contact from NUS asking to speak to her by telephone.

Dr Iglesias told TODAY that nobody besides her contact has reached out to her to give her more information about the episode.

She also sent TODAY a copy of the draft programme for the two-day event, which showed five panel discussions and four roundtables, comprising numerous local and regional academics, including Dr Iglesias.

“While I do not question that NUS can of course decide whatever it wants in organising important international research events, it is reasonable for outsiders to assume that NUS follows global higher education norms, whereby such decisions are made on academic grounds,” she said.

“My sudden disinvitation without any clear explanation — and nothing in writing until this statement (by NUS on Nov 23) — remains a vexing mystery since the panel organiser confirmed my participation by email on Aug 21.”

When contacted by today for responses to what Dr Iglesias had raised, the university said it would not make any further comment after its initial statement.

On Friday (Dec 1), the All UP Academic Employees Union, a body representing academic staff at the University of the Philippines, put up a Facebook post expressing “dismay” at the conduct of NUS and supporting Dr Iglesias.

The union urged NUS to demonstrate fairness and accountability in interacting with their Southeast Asian peers, and called upon other guests of the forum in January to “reconsider their own participation in the conference”.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LORAINE LEE

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that Dr Iglesias is an associate professor of political science at the University of the Philippines Diliman. This is incorrect. She is an assistant professor at the university. We are sorry for the error.