Campus Review Volume 28 - Issue 7 | July 2018 | Seite 15

policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
As negotiations dragged on, including
industrial action by the union and its
members, Adams found what he believes to
be the problem: the university’s major fear
comes from external influences.
“The university have expressed to us that
they could come under some sort of outside
pressure, whether it be governments or
students.
“They could lose money, or have the
potential to lose money, if an academic says
something that is not the current flavour.”
Again, Gelber sees the issue as a storm in
a teacup.
“There’s actually very little evidence that
the university is trying to do this, and that’s
my view, that the union made it much bigger
than it was.
“The university has made a suggestion not
to downgrade the protection of intellectual
freedom or academic freedom in the
agreement, but actually quite the opposite,
to make the reference in the agreement
shorter, but to correlate it and link it directly
to a larger governance document outside of
the enterprise agreement.”
A spokesperson for the University of
Melbourne says the institution makes clear
in its proposed agreement that “there
is no intent to change this policy nor to
compromise the university’s unwavering
commitment to its terms and, importantly,
that exercising the right to academic
freedom cannot be framed as misconduct
or grounds for dismissal”.
THE AUDITOR’S VIEW
Last year the IPA conducted its 2017 Free
Speech on Campus Audit, of which Lesh
was the lead researcher. Key findings
included that of Australia’s 42 universities,
34 received its ‘Red’ rating for having policies
and/or actions that “are hostile to free
speech on campus”.
Only eight of the 42 currently have
policies that protect intellectual freedom, the
IPA found.
And only one university received a ‘Green’
rating, denoting that the institution supports
free speech: the University of New England.
Furthermore, the audit names and shames
“the institutions most hostile to intellectual
freedom”, with the University of Sydney,
Charles Sturt, James Cook and Monash
catching the brunt of the IPA’s ire.
“There are some extremely concerning
trends when it comes to university policies
and the actions on campus when it comes