September 02, 2022
Te Kohu Ted Douglas a fighter for Māori rights
Edward Te Kohu Douglas, an educator and expert on Māori rights, died at the age of 81 at his Hamilton rest home of pneumonia.
Ted Douglas, from Ngāi Tahu and Kāti Māmoe, was president of the New Zealand Federation of Māori Students in 1966 before being awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to do post-graduate study in demography and sociology at the University of West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.
He returned to New Zealand in 1970 to lecture in geography at Victoria University before moving to the University of Waikato in 1973 to lecture in sociology and social anthropology.
Friend Shane Jones says working in the fields of demography and geography, where there were very few Maori in the 1970s and 80s, he had the data and was able to use it to push for change.
He became part of the University of Waikato’s Centre for Maori Studies and Research alongside academics like Sir Robert Mahuta, Ngapare Hopa and James Ritchie, which looked for new ways to engage with and deliver value to Maori communities.
He made submissions to the Waitangi Tribunal including the Manakau claim, Ngāti Awa claim, Te Reo claim and broadcasting frequencies claim, and wrote significant reports on Maori housing and Maori freshwater interests.
He was also seconded to the Royal Commission on Social Policy in 1987 as its senior research officer, and while its massive report was sidelined by Rogernomics, it did introduce the word tauiwi into the lexicon as an alternative to pakeha.
His interest in different ways of education extended to the work of his late wife Rahera in early childhood education and in secondary education where he and then-principal Toby Curtis worked to change Auckland Maori boarding school St Peters.
“Him and Toby Curtis were very active, pushing through reforms at Hato Petera, and moving it from a Catholic church school towards a school that championed a lot of the ideals and spirit of the time in relations to how Maori boarding schools could capture the imagination and create themselves as platforms for renaissance,” Mr Jones says.
He says Mr Jones had a sharp mind and a sharp tongue when challenging his students on their idead.
In recent years he was a driving force behind the Foundation for Indigenous Research in Society & Technology set up by his university classmate Sir Taihakurei Durie.
He is survived by two of his three sons.
Moe mai e te rangatira.
A funeral service for Te Kohu Douglas be held at 11.30am tomorrow at the Simplicity Funeral Home in Te Rapa, with a memorial service to be held at the Waitomo Marae when it reopens next year.