POLICY & REFORM
campusreview.com.au
Without fear or favour
UON’s Professor Marguerite Johnson. Photo: APN
Leading tertiary figures meet to
debate the issues surrounding
freedom of speech at universities.
By Loren Smith
P
rofessor Marguerite Johnson
bristles at the issue of free speech
on campus being termed a ‘fight’.
But that is indeed how Campus Review
labelled it at its recent seminar, ‘The
Fight for Free Speech: What it Means for
Universities’.
The event attracted university scholars
and management from the University
of Tasmania to Curtin University.
Notwithstanding its title, the event
was meant to inform and provoke
meaningful discussion on the practical
steps universities can take to address free
speech concerns.
Nonetheless, Johnson, a classics expert
at the University of Newcastle and one of
the six presenters on the day, said these
concerns in themselves are overblown.
“‘Woke activism’ is not indicative of the
14
student body in general. There is a level of
hysteria. We all need to calm down.”
“@MonashUni’s decision to
institutionalise trigger warnings made
me very uncomfortable. I don’t want
them imposed on my courses” –
@MMJ722 #CRFreeSpeech
— Campus Review (@CampusReview)
21 November 2018
A similar point was raised by presenter
Professor Sharon Bell, deputy vice-
chancellor (strategy and planning) at
Western Sydney University. Referring to the
Institute of Public Affairs' (IPA) ‘Free Speech
on Campus Audit’, it “conflates university
policy with a ‘hostility score’,” Bell said.
“The language, ‘hostility score’,
contributes to the notion of crisis.
“The audit compares a very small
selection of policies with [alleged free
speech-related] actions or media-reported
actions. There is no attempt to document
the huge range of events and debates that
actually occur on campuses.”
Fellow presenter IPA research fellow
Matthew Lesh was on hand to rebut this.
Even if university free speech concerns
involve a minority, he thinks they’re serious.
He relayed anecdotes about an academic
and a student who contacted him,
distressed about universities purportedly
curtailing their free speech.
“I got a call from an academic, [Emilia].
She put some articles on her office door
relating to an aspect of mental health,
a research interest of hers. Someone
complained that the articles made them
feel unsafe. The university told Emilia to take
them down. This eventuated in a heated
argument with her head of department. She
said she felt ‘gaslighted’.
‘I was told academic freedom exists, yet I
was told to take down the posters,’ she said.
“I also spoke to Steve, a student. His
lecturer, a ‘satirical feminist’, tells students to
pursue social justice causes and post about
them on social media. She frequently mocks
Trump during class. Steve adapts his work
to suit the lecturer’s disposition, because he
says that those who don’t, get lower marks.”