policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
Gareth Evans. Photo: News Corp Australia
To the barricades
ANU chancellor urges uni leaders
to fight for free speech.
By Conor Burke
F
ormer Labor heavyweight and now ANU chancellor Gareth
Evans has used a speech to fellow university leaders to detail
ANU’s much publicised struggles with the Ramsay Centre and
call for universities to be vigilant in remaining open to the principles
of free speech.
In the inaugural Chancellor’s Oration to the National Conference
on University Governance in Adelaide, Evans said that, contrary
to the belief of the “army of columnist and editorial writers in the
Murdoch press”, ANU was not swayed by a bunch of ‘leftie’ staff
members. According to Evans, there were myriad warnings that the
Ramsay Centre was not the right fit for ANU.
The levels of micromanagement suggested in the memorandum
of understanding concerned the ANU negotiators, and even the
simple matter of the name of the degree – the ANU suggested
the addition of the word “studies” to the degree – could not be
agreed upon.
Another “warning bell” for Evans was the apparent threat of the
money being pulled after the degree’s proposed eight-year term.
“A time-limited gift is not in itself problematic. But building a
major program involving the hiring of a dozen new staff, and then
being held hostage to its continuation by a donor whose most
senior and influential figures appear to have manifestly different
views to ours about university autonomy and academic freedom,
is not a happy position for any university to be in,” said Evans.
Those “senior and influential figures” include ex-PM and Ramsay
board member Tony Abbott, who raised eyebrows at ANU when in
a Quadrant magazine article he said the course should “not merely
be about Western civilisation but in favour of it”.
Evans’s most strident accusation is in keeping with the accusation
regularly thrown ANU’s way: he believes it was fundamentally the
Ramsay board’s attitude towards academic freedom that derailed
negotiations.
“A draft sentence reading ‘The parties to this MOU acknowledge
each other’s objectives and their shared commitment to the
principles of academic freedom’ came back to us with the words
‘their shared commitment’ struck out and ‘ANU’s commitment’
substituted!” Evans recalled.
Furthermore, the Ramsay CEO insisted that its representatives
be allowed to monitor the ANU’s implementation of the course
by sitting in on classes.
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Also presenting at the conference, Institute of Public Affairs
research fellow Matthew Lesh spoke of his fear that Australian
universities are “becoming closed intellectual shops”.
Lesh (who will speak at Campus Review‘s seminar, The Fight
for Free Speech: What it Means for Universities, on 21 November)
told the conference that universities are turning into activist
organisations rather than a place of free academic inquiry.
“A free-inquiry university does not state the purpose of the
university is to achieve a specific social outcome,” he said.
In a recent conversation with Campus Review, Lesh said there
are some “extremely concerning trends when it comes to university
policies and the actions on campus when it comes to free speech”.
The bulk of his argument comes from a recent audit he
conducted of Australian unis, where he found that of Australia’s
42 universities, 34 received a ‘Red’ rating for having policies and/or
actions that “are hostile to free speech on campus”.
“In practice, if you’re going to facilitate free and open debate,
occasionally offence will be caused. Occasionally feelings will
be hurt. And if you try to prevent that, all you’re really doing is
preventing that debate happening in the first place,” he said.
Lesh has also previously singled out ANU over the Ramsay
furore, bemoaning Australian unis as “lacking in viewpoint diversity”
leading to “groupthink, self-censorship and sometimes active
shouting down”.
Despite the criticisms levelled at ANU and its apparent stifling
of free speech, Evans went on to strike many of the notes
synonymous with free speech crusaders. He spoke of the
“disconcerting” emergence of no-platforming, trigger warnings and
safe spaces, and lamented the apparent loss of student radicalism.
“Maybe I’m just an unreconstructed child of the 1960s, when I
and other student activists were not only not demanding
protection from offence but devoted to causing it.”
Fellow chancellor Dr Peter Shergold, from Western Sydney
University, shared Evans’s sentiments. As reported by The
Australian, Shergold said that universities should have safe spaces
for LGBTI or minority groups, “but university campuses cannot be
safe spaces in terms of ideas”.
A university’s ethos should be “as much freedom as possible –
not to constrain, not to control”, he continued.
On the subject of student outrage, Evans was clear.
“It is only through the largely unconstrained clash of ideas,
some of which are bound to offend someone, that the truth
can ever emerge.”
And he cited the recent furore surrounding who should pay for
security at controversial events as an arena where ANU will support
free speech.
“It would be unconscionable to make either those sponsoring
the speech, or those wanting to protest against it, to pay for their
exercising their rights,” he said.
Ultimately, he urged uni leaders to be brave and to take to the
“barricades” if need be.
“Lines have to be drawn, and administrators’ spines stiffened,
against manifestly unconscionable demands for protection against
ideas and arguments claimed to be offensive.
“If they are not, universities will lose their whole raison d’etre.” ■
Campus Review is hosting a one-day seminar in Sydney on
21 November discussing issues around freedom of speech in
universities. Head to CampusReview.com.au for more info.