Professor Barry Spurr, personal chair in poetry and poetics, at The University of Sydney, has settled with website New Matilda, which published personal emails of his that expressed racist and sexist sentiments. Source: News Corp Australia

Professor Spurr, a literature professor at the University of Sydney, was pursuing the New Matilda website in the Federal Court, demanding the site return any emails still in its possession after he claimed somebody had hacked the emails from his personal account and leaked them.

New Matilda had refused to hand over further emails in its possession to the court or Professor Spurr and did not disclose the source of the emails.

Professor Spurr was suspended by the University of Sydney in October after New ­Matilda published emails he sent from his university account in which he used inflammatory language including racist terms “Mussies”, “Abos” and “Chinky poos”. He also wrote in a demeaning way about women.

Professor Spurr is on a panel overseeing an education curriculum review initiated by the Abbott Government, and his lawyers had earlier told the court the leaks to the website were “the stolen property of a private citizen and is an attack on the federal government”.

It was argued Professor Spurr was “collateral damage” as part of that attack.

A Sydney University investigation found that none of the recipients of Professor Spurr’s racist emails were academics on its payroll.

In the Federal Court in Sydney this morning the parties said they had come to a confidential settlement over the published emails and further emails in the website’s possession.

The details of the settlement remain confidential, but New Matilda has not agreed to reveal the source of the controversial emails.

The parties had previously agreed to the continuation of an order restricting New Matilda from further publication of emails, with the publication of other emails from Mr Spurr in the website’s possession appearing unlikely under the agreement.