KEY POINTS:
It was an email he wrote in between frequent visits to the toilet - but it cost Auckland University lecturer Paul Buchanan his job - a job he desperately wants back.
The sacked academic argued at the Employment Relations Authority office yesterday that an offensive email he wrote to an Arab student last year was a one-off mistake, and that it was his poor state of health that contributed to his "brain explosion" that day.
Buchanan said yesterday he was then recovering from the reversal of Hartmann's procedure, which involved the removal of part of his intestines, and was suffering from severe incontinence.
"Everything I put into my mouth came out almost immediately at the other end," he said.
His work at the university had to revolve around his bowel problems, starting his day at 6am and getting home by late afternoon, when he needed to go to the toilet even more frequently.
Buchanan blamed his ill-health for the state of mind he was in when he wrote this email last May to Asma Al Yammahi, a student from United Arab Emirates who had requested an extension for an essay saying her father had died: "I say this reluctantly but not subtly: you are not suitable for a graduate degree. It does not matter if your father died or if you have a medical certificate. You are close to failing in any event, so these sort of excuses - culturally driven and preying on some sort of Western liberal guilt - are simply lame."
The university considered the email a case of "serious misconduct" by Buchanan, and sacked him from its political studies department.
After the email was leaked to the media, the high profile academic also said Middle Eastern press reports labelled him a racist and that he had also received death threats.
The sacking also made him lose a teaching contract he had signed with the National University of Singapore.
"Singapore is one-third Muslim, and the reaction was due to the NUS's sensitivity to Muslims at the perception that I was a racist," Buchanan said. "Their employment offer to me has been suspended until this issue is resolved."
Yesterday he admitted the email, for which he had apologised, was wrong and said it was written in a "temper tantrum".
At the meeting with his former employers, the Association of University Staff and the Employment Relations Authority, Buchanan said he wanted his old job back and also compensation for loss of income.
But Auckland University's lawyer Shan Wilson, who spent a large part of yesterday cross-examining Buchanan, said there were still many issues involving trust and confidence to be resolved. The hearing continues today.
