Monday, October 02, 2006
BRENDAN Nelson passed on a legitimate grievance by a constituent to Macquarie University ("Nelson leans on uni over 'Left bias'", 30/9-1/10)(see: http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20500846-2702,00.html)
Academic freedom, in the humanities courses in particular, completely disappeared sometime in the 1970s.
Woe is the student who tries to disagree with the far-left dogma of the humanities lecturers and course markers. At best they will get a C-minus for their next essay, at worst they will fail the course. Almost all moderate-left to conservative students I know have had to make the hard choice of biting their tongue and towing the party line, if they want any chance of getting their degree.
There was more academic freedom in Mao's re-education camps during the Cultural Revolution than there is today in any so-called liberal arts course at an Australian university.
Ian Wilson, Toowoomba, Qld
PROFESSOR Steven Schwartz of Macquarie University is right to claim that it is absolutely fundamental we safeguard academic freedom and defend the right and responsibility of academics to decide on the content of their courses. However, Macquarie University would be on firmer ground in this defence of academic freedom had it not, some months ago, forbidden law lecturer Andrew Fraser from teaching his subject after he had written an article with a controversial view of immigration. Education and not indoctrination should be a university's basic aim, and that includes open debate of all opinions, including those that are offensive either to the Left or the Right, or to any other ideology.
John Furedy, Emeritus Professor of Psychology
University of Toronto, Darling Point, NSW
BRENDAN Nelson should acknowledge "academic freedom" at home before he spouts "world freedom" abroad.
Kel Joaquin-Byrne, Randwick, NSW
I THINK Brendan Nelson is quite right to be concerned about left-wing bias in universities.
But it's not something that has just happened. Bob Santamaria said that Melbourne University in the 1930s was a hot bed of communism.
In the 1960s universities almost unanimously backed the communist side in Vietnam and spearheaded the drive to get Australia out of Vietnam. Eventually this helped bring Gough Whitlam to power and public policy swung hard to the left thereafter on both sides of politics.
Santamaria told Sir Robert Menzies that the Martin Report on universities was his biggest mistake. How right he was!
Greg Byrne, Rowville, Vic