"Universities face a fatal choice. They can acquiesce to the demands of censorious staff and students or reject intolerance and bullying".

They faced it well before now, and they have done nothing. They continue to either be bullied by staff and students, or they actually condone the Marxist thuggery and intolerance.

They should have lost all taxpayer funds by now, if we had decent politicians. They need to go private and see how long they last, earning their own 'freedom' and money. They try to deny others the freedom to speak, and gutless governments are paying them to do so. Very ABC-like.

For those who have worked inside universities, the authors concerns/examples are the tip of the iceberg. The arrogance of politically correct(now wokeness) narcists now dominate University administrations. Academic freedom has always been despised by administrators and politicians, but now it is being challenged by those predominantly form the left who want to ban anyone who does not agree with them. In the passed, they used their power of internal and external grant bodies to stifle alternate views via the power of cutting off funds.

NOW they just say that someone's alternate views offend them or some fake/contrived minority group and before you know it the offending " alternative thinker" is ostracized.

This is not the university environment generations have fought for, but a mere superficial vehicles for censorship and indoctrination!

By definition, Universities should not even be allowed to call themselves universities, based on the direction over the last 3 decades re overseas student funds, standards, wokeness and censorship!

ttbn,
spot-on !

Academic freedom has always been despised by administrators and politicians,
Alison Jane,
Why ? Because Universities have never been 'free", their blatant dependence on public funding has & always will be the one issue (apart from the indoctrination that goes on) making them a pain for all who would like to see their taxes put to better use.
The rather tiny circle of actually useful to society graduates could easily & willingly be funded by the Taxpayer.
It's the bulk of the far too many of useless & pointless graduates that are the proverbial spanner in the gears of society.

Western universities have always been the servants and apologists for political power. They are places where the various administrators were trained to manage and justify the political powers that be/were in their time and place. Including the so called theologians whose purpose was to support the "religious" justifications of the empire.

The situation is of course now much more extreme where there is a seamless web of interconnections between the military-industrial-complex and the academy.
A web which includes both the hard, and the soft sciences too including psychology and anthropology the insights of which are used to bolster the 24/7 propaganda machine. The Pentagon has a huge influence on the contents of Hollywood movies.

Why not check out an essay titled: The University and the Security State The Pentagon & the CIA on Campus.

And the books by Henry Giroux beginning with The University in Chains The Military-Industrial-Academic-Complex, and Neoliberalisms War on Higher Education.

Meanwhile check out this outfit http://gcas.ie which is a privately sponsored university that openly questions the powers that be.

Freedom to think has never been the issue, just the current attempt to control thinking by those with the purse strings. Remember it's not their money but taxpayers funds! And our Universities were far better institutions when that was exactly that! And fully funded! Now they are business models that need foreign students, their money and transferable infections to survive.

Simply put, what ain't broken never ever needs fixing.

It has been the endless control freak fixing that has rooted a good model and freedom to think!

What comes next? A Nazi style burning of books!?

Just to satisfy a tiny vocal minority of right wing airheads who think academia is just a waste of money!?
Alan B.

airheads who think academia is just a waste of money!?
Alan B,
No-one thinks that !
Too many with an academic background are a waste of time, money & space and, they steal oxygen.
The few brilliant minds whom Academia enables enhancing their abilities are fully appreciated.

Stealing oxygen? In whose opinion? And based on what factual evidence? Hmm, Nothing factual, just assumption and biased presumption?

Talking of stealing. In the news this morning. Some North Korean hacker stole 550 million dollars worth of cyber currency! Imagine some entities spent real money to buy imagined money that has no more real substance the emperor's new clothes, only to see that cyber money removed by a criminal hacker! Who is probably untouchable due to his/her current location?

Folks, how many times have I warned folk to stay away from this B/S that is crypto currency?

And given that I did, have no sympathy for the airhead investors who lost millions in real money chasing this, pass the parcel, electronic scammer scheme! A fool and their money are soon parted!
Alan B.

Stealing oxygen? In whose opinion?
Alan B,
Why not spend time in the below $50,000/per annum World & talk to the victims of University educated bureaucrats & equally educated experts & policy makers ?
I agree with you on the cyber currency fiasco !

Yes Indy, you are certainly a victim of intelligence.

How many of these examples are simply imported Kochian libertarian agitprop masking deep seated authoritarianism, with antipathy towards research, climate science, analysis, empowered citizens and freedom of speech; witness the pathetic stunts for media agitprop Covid 'freedom protests'.

Also Orwellian double speak as those proposing constraints on universities to support various 'freedoms' are about removing freedom of thought, study, research, speech etc. so citizens are not empowered and look up to Christian conservative authority.

The contradiction is glaring and disturbing when mostly outsiders speak of or claim CRT has taken over university curricula (has not, an old and very niche analytical framework), no freedom of speech etc.; yet in other education settings in the US 'insurgents' (alt right are now popping up at local meetings) demand exclusion of any idea they don't like e.g. a book, like particular teachers must be removed from taught curriculum/syllabi and even books to be burnt.....

There are too many losers who avoid upsetting their authoritarian libertarian masters hiding behind a cloak of Christianity, by following their NewsCorp and pronouncements, then following orders, or attacking anything deemed the 'other'; hardly represents 'freedom & liberty'?

Which of the official Policy-Makers-Implementers are NOT University educated ?

Andras,

There are plenty of cases in Aus, NZ etc in the papers where so-called liberals try to shut down free speech when facts collide with woke dogma. The issue where Garth Cooper challenged the decision by Auckland University to treat Maori myths as a "science" is recent and Garth Cooper is still at risk of losing his job.

As for Critical race theory (CRT), the uproar is not simply that it is taught at schools but that it is taught not as a concept but as a fact when it has no more rational basis than creationism and is itself profoundly racist.

'in the papers' with an axe to grind in support of radical right and antipathy towards anyone educated, for electoral purposes.

radical right and antipathy towards anyone educated
Andras Smith,
Are false assertions such as the above really the only argument half-baked intellectuals have to fall back on ?
It's nothing short of lying.