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campusreview.com.au
Legal twist in
Ramsay saga
Union takes court action
over controversial degree.
T
he National Tertiary Education
Union is taking the University of
Wollongong and its vice-chancellor,
Professor Paul Wellings, to the Supreme
Court over the approval process used
to create its Ramsay Centre degree in
Western civilisation.
What free
speech crisis?
Fears over campus censorship are
unfounded, review concludes.
A
ustralia’s universities are not facing a
free speech crisis, a new report says.
Education Minister Dah Tehan asked
former chief justice of the High Court of
Australia Robert French to conduct a review on
The NTEU lodged a claim in the Supreme
Court of NSW to see the approval of the
contentious degree declared invalid.
NTEU’s UOW branch president Associate
Professor Georgine Clarsen said the basis
of the legal challenge was that the VC
inappropriately invoked the fast-track
approval process for the degree.
Clarsen said while the fast-track process
is commonly and appropriately used for
minor changes to courses or to move them
to other university centres, establishing a
new degree that’s “immensely controversial
and has demonstrably affected the
reputation of the University of Wollongong”
is not an appropriate time to invoke it.
She added that members are
concerned about the Ramsay Centre as an
organisation, its reputation and aims.
“We do not think it is an organisation that
our university should partner with, and we
defend our members’ right to express their
concerns about these issues,” she said.
NTEU national president Dr Alison
Barnes said the action was made due
to the “gradual and persistent erosion of
academic governance at our universities in
recent decades”. “Corporate governance and managerial
prerogative are displacing collegiality –
and it is time to draw a line in the sand,”
Barnes said.
“The university’s subsequent dismissal
of the academic senate’s objection
indicates its disregard for its own academic
community.
“Best practice academic governance
requires universities to take into account
and reflect the views of their staff, students
and communities. This has clearly not
happened in this case.”
Clarsen said through collegial processes,
committees, discussion and levels of
scrutiny, academics have together devised
courses and degrees and accredited them.
“In this case, our managers have
pre-empted that and decided that they
themselves are able to decide and
accredit a course without recourse to that
normal process.
“We feel that has been going on for
some time, and it’s time to call a halt to it.”
When approached for comment, the
University of Wollongong said that as this
is a legal matter, it would not be making
public comment. ■
free speech late last year amid growing public
debate and media coverage of the issue.
In his report, French said: “From the
available evidence … claims of a freedom of
speech crisis on Australian campuses are not
substantiated.”
He wrote that there was never a golden
age of free speech in Australia’s universities
and later added that the “reported incidents
in Australia in recent times do not establish a
systemic pattern of action by higher education
providers or student representative bodies
adverse to freedom of speech or intellectual
inquiry in the higher education sector".
“There is little to be gained by debating the
contested merits of incidents which have
been the subject of report and controversy,”
he said.
Still, he noted that even a small number of
incidents seen as oppositional to freedom of
speech could affect the public perception of
higher education.
However, French said the answer to those
concerns is not increased government
regulation and suggested instead a voluntary
model code be adopted across the sector.
“Such a code is likely to enhance the
authority of the sector in its self-regulation in
this important area,” he said. “It should cover academic freedom,
particularly those aspects of it which relate
to freedom of expression and freedom of
intellectual inquiry as well as the protection,
at least within existing limits, of institutional
autonomy.
“The code should also be at least a
relevant consideration in the negotiation
of enterprise bargaining agreements,
employment contracts, collaborative
arrangements with third parties and the
conditions upon which major philanthropic
gifts are accepted.”
Universities Australia chief executive
Catriona Jackson said universities
will give careful consideration to the
recommendations in the 300-page report.
“However, we remain concerned that
sector-wide legislative or regulatory
requirements would be aimed at solving a
problem that has not been demonstrated
to exist and any changes could conflict
with fundamental principles of university
autonomy,” Jackson said.
Tehan said he would be writing to
all higher education providers to urge
them to carefully consider French’s
recommendations and the adoption of the
model code. ■
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