Mary Heath | Flinders University of South Australia (original) (raw)

Papers by Mary Heath

The Defence Special Undertakings Act 1952 (Cth) is a draconian piece of Cold War legislation orig... more The Defence Special Undertakings Act 1952 (Cth) is a draconian piece of Cold War legislation originally passed to provide security for British atomic testing in Australia. There are only two known prosecutions under the Act, both involving Christian pacifists entering the Pine Gap prohibited area. In 2007, the first ever convictions under the Act were overturned on appeal. A second prosecution has now commenced. This article considers the history and context of the current prosecutions and contends that the Act is being used to suppress contemporary dissent in a period in which the Australian government already faces criticism of its treatment of the right to protest.

Environmental destruction and climate change are driving new waves of environmental activism. In ... more Environmental destruction and climate change are driving new waves of environmental activism. In response, governments in several Australian states have enacted legislation designed to penalise and silence political protest. This article analyses Tasmania’s anti-protest laws and considers how the United Nations and scholars have reacted to them. We argue that protest suppression laws such as these reflect a neoliberal rationality which conceptualises society in market terms. This mode of thinking perceives protest as market interference rather than civic participation. Accordingly, anti-protest laws seek to secure the rights and interests of corporations to unimpeded market access

Contemporary higher education, including legal education, incorporates complexities that were not... more Contemporary higher education, including legal education, incorporates complexities that were not identified even a decade ago. Law programs first moved from traditional content-focussed programs toward incorporating critique and legal skills. Many are now working toward recognising inclusion and student wellbeing as integral to law graduates’ professional identities and skillsets. Yet the professional dispositions law teachers require to teach in these environments are ostensibly at odds with traditional lawyering identities founded upon an ideal of rationality that actively disengaged from affect. This article draws on our teaching experience and data drawn from the Smart Casual project, which designed self-directed professional development modules for sessional law teachers, to identify the limits of a traditional teaching skillset in the contemporary Australian tertiary law teaching context. We argue that contemporary legal education demands considerable emotional labour and we present sample contexts which highlight the challenges law teachers face in doing what is expected of them. The article makes explicit the emotional labour that has often been implicit or unrecognised in the role of legal academics in general, and in particular, in the role of sessional legal academics.

It is clear that law, like many other disciplines taught at tertiary level, includes material tha... more It is clear that law, like many other disciplines taught at tertiary level, includes material that can be challenging to teach and to learn. Student engagement, and thus learning, is at risk when students become bored or distressed. Conventional pedagogical theory suggests that the use of authentic or ‘real world’ examples is often an aid in engaging students, but in this paper we have explored the ways in which sometimes this is not the case. A fictional example such as Game of Thrones has much to offer in providing a pathway to engagement. This paper explores various barriers to student engagement and how particular scenes from Game of Thrones have been used to overcome them.

In 1969, the South Australian Parliament passed amendments to the criminal law designed to libera... more In 1969, the South Australian Parliament passed amendments to the
criminal law designed to liberalise abortion and clearly state the circumstances in which abortion services might lawfully be provided by medical practitioners. Nevertheless, abortion offences, and the circumstances under which abortion may lawfully be provided, are stated in the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA), and this fact has given rise to continued concern about the legality of abortion in South Australia. This article considers whether there is any basis for these concerns, with particular focus on the provision of medication abortion, which was not contemplated by Parliament in 1969. In doing so, it draws on the language of the provisions and the extensive parliamentary debates that preceded their
passage into law, arguing that Parliament’s primary goal was to preserve
women’s health through clarifying the contexts in which lawful abortion
would be available. We contend that any suggestion that medical abortion is criminal in South Australia, or that medical practitioners who comply with the statutory scheme in good faith run the risk of being prosecuted, is not grounded in an accurate account of the positive law. Nor is it supported by the application of the law in practice since 1969.

Law schools and the legal profession in Australia have long been associated with social reproduct... more Law schools and the legal profession in Australia have long been associated with social reproduction of the elite. Scholars have been inclined to reflect on the structural arrangements that sustain this association, which form one important dimension of its persistence. However, the ways people interact with one another can also entrench privilege, by indicating that the values, attributes, and views of some people are either accepted and wanted or are unaccepted and unwanted—quietly including or excluding. This sorting also happens in law schools and in legal practice, partly because of behavior modeled in law schools.

Despite a clear case for thinking skills in legal education, the approach to teaching these skill... more Despite a clear case for thinking skills in legal education, the approach to teaching these skills often appears to be implied in law curricula rather than identified explicitly. Thinking skills could be taught as part of reading law and legal problem solving. However, learning the full suite of thinking skills requires active teaching strategies which go beyond exposing students to the text of the law, and training them in its application by solving problem scenarios. The challenge for law teachers is to articulate how to learn legal thinking skills, and to do so at each level of the degree. This article outlines how the nexus between three component skills: critical legal thinking, reading law, and legal problem solving, can be put to work to provide a cohesive and scaffolded approach to the teaching of legal thinking. Although the approach in this article arises from the Smart Casual project, producing discipline-specific professional development resources directed at sessional teachers in law, we suggest that its application is relevant to all law teachers.

Many disciplines require a curriculum that encompasses sensitive content. Our capacity to respond... more Many disciplines require a curriculum that encompasses sensitive content. Our capacity to respond to this content appropriately as educators is crucialto student attainment of discipline-specific professional competencies as well as students’ capacity to serve future clients and communities. Appropriate preparation for future professional lives that will inevitably touch upon sensitive issues is also critical for students’ resilience. In this paper, seven tertiary educators from a range of disciplines consider learning and teaching in relation to sensitive issues. This paper draws on our own teaching experiences and the research literature to argue that, while teaching sensitive subject matter can present risks to students, it has profound bene ts for students’ development and future professional work. We argue that there is considerable consensus in published research – as well as among ourselves – about strategies to support student learning and minimise risk, together with a limited number of areas that remain controversial both in practice and in the literature. We provide practical information directed toward managing the risks presented by teaching sensitive issues. We contend that addressing sensitive content is a professional responsibility for teachers, disciplines and universities.

Law is a text-based discipline. The comprehension and interpretation of the written word lies at ... more Law is a text-based discipline. The comprehension and interpretation of the written word lies at the core of legal reasoning and underpins legal writing. This article argues that developing the skills of critical legal reading is fundamental to all aspects of legal education and ultimately, to the practice of law. Law teachers have mastered and internalised the processes of legal reading, and sometimes therefore overlook the need to teach them explicitly to law students, who are novices. This paper examines the necessary mechanics, techniques and dispositions of critical legal reading in an overall taxonomy, contending that teaching these aspects in explicit and concrete ways is essential for students who are acquiring legal reading skills. Drawing on education, psychology and linguistic research fields, we offer a contemporary account of critical legal reading as a teachable skill and a core component of the undergraduate curriculum in law.

In Anthony J Nocella II and Erik Juergensmeyer, eds. Fighting Academic Repression and Neoliberal ... more In Anthony J Nocella II and Erik Juergensmeyer, eds. Fighting Academic Repression and Neoliberal Education: Resistance, Reclaiming, Organizing, and Black Lives Matter in Education (New York, United States of America: Peter Lang, 2017) 33–45.

in Jacquelin McDonald and Aileen Cater-Steel, eds. Implementing Communities of Practice in Higher... more in Jacquelin McDonald and Aileen Cater-Steel, eds. Implementing Communities of Practice in Higher Education - Dreamers and Schemers (Springer, Singapore, 2017) 183–204.

Foreword to special edition on the corporatisation of legal education.

Griffith Law Review, 2015

Australian Feminist Law Journal, 2015

Page 1. THRIVING AS A BISEXUAL OR QUEER WOMAN: Written by Mary Heath Original research conducted ... more Page 1. THRIVING AS A BISEXUAL OR QUEER WOMAN: Written by Mary Heath Original research conducted by Mary Heath (maryheath@flinders.edu.au) and Ea Mulligan (ea.mulligan@flinders.edu.au) With financial support from the Australian Lesbian ...

Abstract: This article uses stories about everyday life to explore ideas about sex, gender and se... more Abstract: This article uses stories about everyday life to explore ideas about sex, gender and sexuality. It questions the dominant idea that there are only two sexes and two genders, and that sex should always be congruent with gender, drawing on queer theory - and intersex ...

Australian Feminist Law Journal, 1997

Catharine MacKinnon is probably the best known of the feminist theorists who have written about t... more Catharine MacKinnon is probably the best known of the feminist theorists who have written about the state: certainly she is one of the most controversial. Her writing on the nature of the state is significantly different from other feminist theory about the state. As Judith Allen has ...

Australian Feminist Law Journal, 1994

... Introducing the Bill that was later to become the Criminal Law Consolidation (Rape) Amendment... more ... Introducing the Bill that was later to become the Criminal Law Consolidation (Rape) Amendment Act (1992), Attorney-General Sumner said: Mary Heath is a lecturer in law at the Flinders University of South Australia. ... by GC Gill, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985. Page 6. ...