A white nationalist convicted of what a judge called “in effect a hate crime” towards Muslims is standing for a seat on the board of a multicultural New Zealand school, sparking alarm over the adequacy of laws governing the influential bodies and a debate about whether people with extremist views should be barred from standing.
Philip Arps, one of nine candidates for five positions on the board of Te Aratai College in Christchurch, was jailed for 21 months in 2019 for sharing footage of a white supremacist terror attack on two mosques in the South Island city. He asked a friend to modify the footage by adding cross-hairs and a “kill count”.
He has 50 criminal convictions and has served 13 terms of imprisonment, but Arps’ candidacy for the school board is legitimate under New Zealand law governing disqualifying factors, according to the education ministry, and has been accepted by the company running the vote.
In 2019, a judge said Arps had strong and unrepentant views about the Muslim community and had, in effect, committed a hate crime. The judge said Arps had compared himself to Rudolf Hess, a Nazi leader under Adolf Hitler.
“Your offending glorifies and encourages the mass murder carried out under the pretext of religious and racial hatred,” the judge said.
The outcry over Arps’ run has turned a spotlight on New Zealand’s school board elections, which often attract low voter turnout and little competition – a far cry from the divisive cultural battlegrounds seen in the US. But the three-to-seven member bodies hold significant influence over every part of school life, including curriculum, hiring, uniform, culture, and behavioural management – and more recently, public health and cultural matters that have proved sites for fraught debate.
Richard Edmundson, the principal of Te Aratai College, less than a kilometre from one of the mosques attacked in 2019, told the Guardian that 20% of eligible voters – parents and guardians of current students – had cast ballots for the school board election on Monday.
Edmundson would not comment on Arps’ candidacy, to permit a fair election process. He said he was proud to lead a multicultural school – 63% of the student body is Māori, Pacific or Asian – where the board had this year voted to affirm a set of values, suggested by students and staff, of “manaakitanga [respect and generosity], whanaungatanga [working together], rangatiratanga [self-determination] and turangawaewae [the place one has a right to stand]”.
What school a pupil may attend in New Zealand is determined by where they live; Arps’ publicly posted candidate statement says he has children who are future students. Board members are not required to be parents of current students, although many are.
Arps, a tradesperson who formerly ran an insulation business that was removed from a review website because of branding described by a judge as “Nazi-related”, did not serve his full 21-month sentence for distribution of the mosque attack video. His previous convictions include an offensive behaviour charge for leaving a box containing a bloody pig’s head outside a mosque in 2016.
Arps filmed the incident, during which he used the phrase “white power”. His lawyer in 2019 described his client’s views as “nationalist”, and judges have spoken of his “deep-seated enmity towards people of the Muslim and Jewish faiths“ and “extreme ideological views.”
‘Principals are concerned’
Vaughan Couillault, the president of New Zealand’s Secondary Principals’ Association, said “pretty much anyone” could run for school boards in Aotearoa.
“What is a wee oddity is that a volunteer football coach has to be police vetted, but the board as a governing organisation with a far more influential role don’t have to be police vetted,” Couillault said. He added that board members typically had far less unsupervised contact with students.
“But it’s probably timely to examine the criteria that disqualifies you and see if it’s still fit for purpose,” he said.
Arps’ candidacy has prompted the government to look into the matter – not for the first time. New Zealand’s school boards are powerful, fairly autonomous, and responsible, along with school leaders, for their institutions complying with dozens oflaws.
In recent years, schools’ obligations include rolling out a new Aotearoa New Zealand histories curriculum and a legal mandate to reflect Māori customs, knowledge and worldviews.
A major 2019 education report raised concerns that some boards did not have the skills, knowledge or resources to fulfil their increasing responsibilities and recommended, among other measures, a national code of conduct for board members.
A law change in 2020 allowed for the government to create one, but Jan Tinetti, the associate education minister, told Radio New Zealand this week that proposed mandatory standards were still in development.
“I don’t want to rush it because of one case at this point in time because I don’t want any unintended consequences to come from that,” she said.
It was not clear whether a code would or could be used to screen candidates before they were elected; those running for school boards are not required to disclose views they hold in their candidate statements and do not declare political affiliations.
Tinetti had also sought urgent clarification from officials about the laws governing candidate eligibility, which have been interpreted as not disqualifying Arps despite his past prison terms.
Arps’ case is a unique one; his name and views are widely known and he has a documented record of offending. But cases faced by other schools are not so simple.
Te Aratai College is one of hundreds of schools currently appointing new boards around the country. Most did not have to hold a ballot as there were equal or fewer candidates than the number of posts available.
Education groups have expressed concerns that single-issue candidates – particularly those opposed to public health measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 in schools – could be elected unchallenged or without voters knowing their views.
Some schools have faced roiling conflict over mask mandates and vaccinations, and the stress of the pandemic had led some long-serving and qualified members to resign.
“Principals are concerned about parents coming into boards who do have a specific agenda,” said Cherie Taylor-Patel, the president of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation. “Often new board members don’t understand that it’s not for them to have a say in the day-to-day running of the school.”
She was confident that any challenges could be overcome, but some researchers worried that New Zealand’s school governance models – which presume good faith engagement and a shared idea of what was good for students – were ripe for exploitation.
“On any level that you measure it, in Aotearoa on every metric you can see the deterioration of society and the social fabric of civil relationship,” said Sanjana Hattotuwa, a research fellow at the Disinformation Project.
He said New Zealanders’ unusually high trust in their democracy had generated a lack of investment in safeguards for it, and school boards were one example of those with extreme views “stress-testing societal democratic limits”.
