The sacked professor of medieval history at University of Oslo, Arnved Nedkvitne, is contributing to the largest media coverage for the university for a long time. Nedkvitne lost his court case against the university after demanding his professorship back and financial compensation. Now a variety of issues related to the case has hit Oslo's newspaper headlines.

The first, and most bizarre story, is a report on the work of the main safety overseer (also responsible for human relations) at the University of Oslo, Mette Børing, who was present at the case as a witness.

Allegedly, Børing told another witness, Professor Kristian Gundersen of biology who is a strong defender of Nedkvitne's rights of expression, to shut up in court, when he was whispering to a colleague beside him as one of the witnesses gave testimony against Nedkvitne.

Børing later proposed to work out guidelines as a kind of code of conduct at the university with lists of words and expressions not to be tolerated when describing a colleague. She claimed this was needed, having four or five other cases on her table after the Nedkvitne case, with similar accusations of improper characterisations of colleagues. She said something had to be done.

This strange proposal brought her to the front page of the major Oslo finance newspaper, Dagens Næringsliv, with a comment by Kristian Gundersen that he regarded this as a clear breach of his democratic right of expression. The following day, Oslo Rector Ole Petter Ottersen denied such a work was in progress.

Several people commented on the proposal with Professor Bernt Hagtvet of political science at the university asking rhetorically: "Would for instance the expression 'braindead perfumed puma' be accepted in her list of words?"

Meanwhile, a number of senior law professors questioned the verdict and recommended that Nedkvitne appeal to a higher court.

Professor Jan Fridtjof Bernt, previous rector at the University of Bergen, said the verdict was questionable on several counts. He argued that when an academic took up a responsible position as head of a university department at a Norwegian university, and participated in decisions that were unpopular, he or she had to expect negative reactions.

"If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen", Bernt told Dagens Næringsliv.

Lawyers for the Norwegian Union of Researchers, which covered the costs for the first trial, are now examining the case to see if there are grounds for an appeal. Late last week, for reasons of principle, the union decided to financially support Nedkvitnes' appeal to a higher court.

Meanwhile, the university is receiving huge media coverage, mixing the Nedkvitne case with the McKinsey report characterising its culture as "organised anarchy, with no loyalty of the professors, unable to implement a culture of management", and with the draft of the university's strategic plan 2010-2020.

A document from a group of distinguished Norwegian academics calling for greater focus on academic training at universities and against the present dominating trend of economic effectiveness, is also fuelling the debate.

At the yearly contact meeting between the Ministry of Education and Research and higher education institutions, Minister Tora Aasland characterised the University of Oslo as "the best kept secret in the country with regard to public interest in the numerous exiting research results". Not for long.

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