Paul
Would you consider racist abuse based on false stereotypes directed at other racial minorities to be acceptable behaviour by university staff, so long as it is not “mainstream academic thinking”?

Hi Rhian,

I think there are racists working at Bunnings, just as there are racists work at universities. But I don't class universities as racists organisations, based on a minority of thinking/opinions, no more than I consider Bunnings a racists organisation for the same reasons.

I've got this ridiculous idea. Maybe Steve S can back up his claims with some facts.

Nuremberg Dan,

Pinochet, another one of your folk heroes, or just a member of the family, Uncle Augusto. I know you would totally disagree with dropping excess cargo out of a plane at 3,000 feet.... more like 10,000 feet and make sure the jobs done properly.

Hi Paul

I agree there are probably racists working in most medium to large employers, and that doesn’t necessarily mean they are racist organisations. And I agree that most universities are not intrinsically racist. But the surge of threats, intimidation, doxing and bullying directed at Jewish students and academics in recent years is extensively documented, including in this Parliamentary report released last year.

http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Human_Rights/AntisemitismAusUni/Report

To extend your Bunnings analogy, it would not be acceptable if racist staff bullied Muslim co-workers and threatened or abused customers wearing hijabs.

I think Professor Schwartz’s main point in this article, though, is not the failure of universities to curb antisemitism directed at staff and students, but the misuse of the principle of academic freedom to fail to enforce professional standards appropriate to the subject under consideration. He cites the use of antisemitic tropes by academics as an illustration, but presents it as part of a wider problem. There should be no place for flat-earther theory in teaching geology, and there should be no place for antisemitic tropes in teaching politics.

There are many more racists among those bleating racism than there are actual racist people.
University indoctrination had a lot to do with that outcome.
They're the simpletons with University degrees who are too stupid to even understand their own thinking.

Bonger 1405, Como Estes senior…

#… ust a member of the family, Uncle Augusto..#

Your a clairvoyant!

Great man was Uncle. Related to that other Spanish speaker in the Phillipines, uncle Ferdinand and Aunty Imelda; had a fetish with shoes she did, thousands of them scattered all over the place: a few Leftist bodies on occasions, some with shoes on. Looked kind of funny really.

Hi Rhian,

"I agree that most universities are not intrinsically racist. But the surge of threats, intimidation, doxing and bullying directed at Jewish students and academics in recent years is extensively documented, including in this Parliamentary report released last year."

I would agree universities are intrinsically "left wing", and the ME situation, like all situations has been reduced to a left/right confrontation issue, when the reality is not that clear. For me its not an ideological issues at all, but rather a socio-economic struggle with a lot more complexity thrown in. Religiously one side happens to be Muslim, and the other Jewish, that's where the religious aspect starts and finishes, but religion can be a focus for some, and a rallying point.

I believe a small minority of students and faculty at universities are responsible for the surge in antisemitic racism on campus. What can be done about it, that's the difficult question.