A wonderful article from the "woe-is-us" political Right.

As usual the Right really wants us to believe that there is no "Right"; that they indeed are the "moderates" and all there is is the Left.

A simple read of the article shows how it is filled with Right-wing rhetoric and catch phrases. "...new McCarthyism" or

"...a hostile atmosphere to mainstream or conservative principles and the intolerant suppression of ideas that do not fit into a far-left worldview" or

"...lecturers may also choose textbooks that promote a particular ideology, or present political opinions as fact" Gasp! or

"...left leaning cultural warriors" (Right-wing chorus) or best of all

"...far-left opinions have been allowed to flourish on university campuses." Allowed?! Call the army! What? Should they have been stopped specifically?

There is way too much to comment on here: donations to the Democratic Party - oh my god! Get the army back!

And best of all connecting "...this continued ideological indoctrination" is affecting numeracy and literacy.

Get a grip. The Right (and this author) is just as ideological as the Left. A pox on all your houses.

John

a chilling campaign, courtesy of chillingly nasty and dishonest political creeps.

I take your point that diversity is a good thing in university departments, but I think this line of argument is jumping a little at 'ideological' shadows.

At least insofar as many social science departments are concerned, the fear of the Leftist/Marxist extreme indoctrination through our university system is, I suspect, a little misplaced. Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find academics who are politically extreme sitting at either end of the spectrum in many departments (assuming you even think the spectrum is still particularly relevant).

The anecdotes in this piece aside, it is a danger to confuse reasoned argument as an essential part of teaching (irrespective of whether it is perceived as leaning left or right), with polemic indoctrination. Jumping at 'ideological' shadows is often just a waste of time.

I fully agree with the author.

The situation is also occurring in high schools, where students now have to be very cautious even when asking a teacher a question (particularly if you are male and white).

About time we had people talking about this.

Some of these negative comments are typical of what goes on at uni, as soon as you voice an opinion different to the accepted "group think" you get shut down.

How about this from a course reader: "John Howard and his 'blue-eyed aussie cultural jihadiststs' are the real fundamentalists to watch out for in society."

Fundamentalist? Cultural jihadist? This sort of language applies to Nazis and terrorists, not to a popularly elected Prime Minister of Australia over 12 years. Sure, nothing wrong with disagreeing with him but this sort of depiction as a statement of fact is a joke.

If you can't see this as a problem, then you've clearly got your blinkers on - free speech and intellectual diversity are what make a free society and good university.

...aannnnnnd... RenegadeScience takes first prize for PROVING exactly what the title says "Too much preaching" :)

I thought that crown was mine..but clearly not.

Renegade.. you just preached, blathered and blah'd. You attacked, but didn't explore much.

I have to FULLY agree at least in principle that we need to explore issues in depth.

I am constantly charged with all manner of intellectual sins, and research inadequacies but seldom do the attacks exceed a mindless, unthought out adhominen, except CJ and Pericles do choose their words quite nicely, and are a pleasure to read at times :) I learn a lot from them.

Newest lesson "Belicose" :) thanx CJ.

One of these days.. whether it's Left/Right or Islam/Christianity or Feminism/Paternalism people will actually engage on the ISSUE..and defeat or disprove it on reasonable, well researched grounds.

Bugsy did quite well on the evolution thread.. *Point 2 Bugsy*....

Ginxy bombs out dismally on most threads, descending into some twilight zone of rabid depressed frothing socialist anger... but theres new medication around for that I think :)

No Ginxy..not an adhomimen..just observation of fact which any reader can quickly verify.

Vanilla? hmm she has done less preaching and more invetigating lately.. good work.

and ...don't bother all youz.. I can predict every syllable of 'rage' :)

Love and best wishes to you all. (really)

“One student was told in an industrial relations class that if she wrote a paper arguing in favour of WorkChoices industrial relations reform, she would be marked down. Another, studying to become a teacher, was forced to read textbooks accusing the Howard government of racism towards Aborigines. A third was welcomed into her classroom with a lecturer's boasts of working as part of the Labor party's successful election campaign.”

Nothing changes, then. Universities, and public schools continue to be hotbeds of left-wing seething and plotting, turning out students who have all of the ‘desired’ political rhetoric, but who can barely read and write.

And, it must be really bad now, if Laborite students are complaining about it. It seems that we are now dealing with a mob so far to the left, that they have yet to be identified and given a name.

While it is no surprise that the ‘private schools unions’ support the same left-wing drivel of their state counterparts, private school managements have more control over the extra-curricular rubbish, which is purely political – nothing at all to do with education. “Social justice” indeed! It’s up to students to work out their own ideas on social justice, not have extremists ramming their opinions down their throats.

However, this author’s politics, and those of the Young Liberals need to be taken into account. We don’t want to see one lot of ideology replaced by another. There should be none of it in education

Young Liberals really do show a strange understanding of the political spectrum. I don’t know how they would have coped if they had gone to La Trobe University in the 1970s, when to be left-wing was to be left-wing, to belong to the Communist Club or the Worker-Student Alliance, to praise Chairman Mao as the “Great Helmsman”, to blather on about the imminent collapse of capitalist society and the rout of the running dogs of US imperialism as the worker-student paradise came to fruition, to occupy buildings, to disrupt lectures, to bash opponents. Now, being anti-WorkChoicesforemployers or seeking to “overcoming inequalities between social groups” seems to be enough to qualify as left-wing.

An education system that “maximises the educational capacity of each student” is important. That is one reason that I oppose the Liberal Party. I lived through its 1992-99 rule Victoria when it did more damage to education in this state than any left-wing academic, and more damage than the teachers union, which has been an overall force for good in education for all the years that I belonged to it.

Mr. Right,

The most recent PISA tests confirm that, far from turning out students who are barely read and write, Australia’s education system achieves in the top ten countries in the world.

HRS,

I’ve never known a high school student to be cautious in asking a question because of being white or male.

Making education fair... let's see, that would involve cutting public funding for rich private schools so that public education could compete on a level playing field, wouldn't it?

Oh, I see.

ChrisC,

"The most recent PISA tests confirm that, far from turning out students who are barely read and write, Australia’s education system achieves in the top ten countries in the world."

But, how well are the "top ten countries" perorming? Real life indicates every day that neither students nor their parents (letters and emails to teachers from the latter) can read properly, spell properly or write properly. Have a look at shop signs. Have a look at the spelling written under people being interviewed on TV.

I would like to believe the PISA tests, as you do, and feel more comfortable. But I do not believe any progaganda coming from education bureaucrats, teachers' unions (teachers are not much better than their students, hence the poor qualities in students), or politicians.

Desperate governments and their lackeys fudge figures all the time to get the heat off themselves. Rarely, if ever, does anyone follow up on their claims to see how empty they are.

I'm not really sure what BOAZ_David implies from a reading of my comments, except that he must whole-heartedly agree with the author and therefore cannot accept some criticism about it's argument and must then attack me and my apparent motives, and abilities.

My point was to point out that the author and all involved are just as ideological as the others they want (somehow) silenced.

The consistent use of ridicule, buzz phrases and over used anti-left rhetoric is tiresome.

And the prize for assuming way too much than can be garnered from reading one commentary goes to BOAZ_David for his assumptions about my motives or even my political leanings.

Thanks for proving that point the first impressions or simplistic analysis are often wrong.
John

Renegade Scientist,

I am no liberal party supporter. But I studied at Latrobe University for two year in the social sciences department and they were pretty much, across the board, radical lefties. Robert Manne was considered 1) far right wing at that stage by my lecturers and tutors and 2) persona non grata to some extent.

The courses were heavily biased with left leaning material. I came out the end convinced of the leftist causes which I’m sure they were very happy about. I have since had the fortune to have seen through the hollowness of much of what passes for leftist thought today. It general, it is heavy on style and form and very light on substance. Hence the soft lefties adoption of symbolic acts to the exclusion of practical solutions.

Anyone who suggests that the left isn’t advancing its agenda through Universities and higher education in general, is truly blinkered. The point isn’t that leftist voices shouldn’t be heard. But there should be some balance.

The soft-lefties are fighting a losing battle since the whole world has moved to the right over the last 20 years. This is evident in the shift to the right of western left-leaning parties. Blair’s new Labour and Rudd’s for that matter are two examples.

Bushbasher,

WTF, “chilling” “creeps”. It’s so typical of the soft left. Really, you’d think they would save that language for the Burnmese generals, or Saddam Hussein. But no, the people they really hate are the conservatives who don’t share their vacuous agenda. Sad really, while they are manning the trenches looking out over No mans land for the Conservatives, they are much more likely to be stabbed in the back by one of the fascistic groups that they refuse to criticise because it might mean sharing a conservative cause.

Anyone who thinks there isn't a left leaning bias at university either doesn't want to know about it, or is part of it, or whole-heartedly thinks that Bob Brown is a centrist.

In my opinion universities are home to some radical ideas which wouldn't be considered legitimate by the vast majority of regular Australians.

I once had a lecturer in a class on terrorism say things like

"what we call terrorists are often just freedom fighters"

"the Oklahoma City bombing in the US was an example of Christian terrorism."

"Most of the world's media support Palestine... (except The Australian newspaper)...but that's just 'The Israeli' anyway."

But then, I guess perception of bias can be relative. I've also experienced a lecturer who was openly a Communist say they thought Australian Universities had a right-wing bias because Communism wasn't being taught as a legitimate alternative.

No normal everyday Australian thinks that Communism is a good idea, nor is there anyone suggesting that Christianity has a problem with terrorism.

We can't give these academic radicals carte blanche for their own academic crusade on the common-sense.

I think something ought to be done. If they're not bias, then universities shouldn't have a problem with becoming more open & transparent abou what they are teaching.

I agree completely with the article, although the US examples cited were a bit irrelevant other than an example of elsewhere

After forty years in the workforce, I recently undertook teacher training through a Grad Dip in Education. I wanted to share my experience and knowledge, put something back, so to speak. I was appalled at the outrageous narrow approach of some of the lecturers/tutors, where you had to spout back exactly what you were told, and only from the set texts, otherwise you failed or your work was rejected to be resubmitted until the espoused doctrine was adhered to.

It was not so much the narrow views themselves that I found hard to take, it was the fact that by taking the particular stances in a tertiary institution, the proponents were portraying how ill-educated they themselves were.

I don’t divide these views into right or left, simply because I find such labels both constraining and unhelpful to debate and/or discussion. Suffice to say that the doctrines advocated were from narrow and closed minds.

Chris C,
I have heard of many complaints from high school students and parents regards what a teacher has been telling the students, and what a teacher has done if a student had a different opinion.

One favorite trick appears to involve giving the student low marks for assignments, and a student should enter into an arts course, a social science course, and even a history course at their own risk (particularly if they are male and white).

But the good news for high school students (in QLD at least) is that they can join the local town library and access an online tutor for free.

https://connect.yourtutor.com.au/list.aspx

If they are a member of the local town library, the student can submit their assignment to the online tutor, and the tutor will provide an assessment of the assignment before the student submits the assignment to their actual teacher.

For no cost the student can get a second opinion of their assignment, and this may help balance out any prejudice or bias from their teacher.

Shorter Nigel Freitas: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

But seriously, he claims that gentle right-wingers are victims of "a new McCarthyism", when he is the one channeling Joe McCarthy - casting aspersions about some sort of shadowy left-wing conspiracy among the higher education sector to turn out radical lefties.

Where is the evidence? A couple of half-baked anecdotes about people encountering challenging material for the first time in their lives and being upset by it. Guess what? You go to uni to read things you wouldn't otherwise encounter. That's the point. This is probably a shock to the poor dears after a lifetime being raised on a steady diet of spoon-fed private school coaching.

News Flash: The radical left is dead on campuses. Barely anybody shows up to protests. Student unions have been decimated by the last government's policies. The students all work two jobs just so they can eat two-minute noodles for four years. Doesn't leave much time or energy for plotting the overthrow of capitalism.

The Big Red Menace is over, guys. It's been over for almost 20 years. Have you been too busy jumping at shadows to notice?

paul L, i save such language for ideologically inspired threats to academic freedom. is there a problem with biased lecturers, and silly lecturers, and sacred cows? of course there is. there always has, there always will be, on both sides of the spectrum. i'm as appalled by knee-jerk unquestioned feminist twaddle as i am by knee-jerk unquestioned free market twaddle. it's an easy game and it's a pointless, stupid game.

there is a problem: lecturers are human. they have failings. some more than others, some more consciously and deliberately than others. but it's not a left thing or a right thing, it's a human thing.

what will not help one iota is to have a campaign of little hitlers waiting to write down and publicise utterings at the first sign of offence. ther are plenty on the left who like to play this game, too. and it is just as disgusting then. but this is a whole-cloth american import of horowitzian sleaze.

such campaigns ARE chilling and these people ARE sleazy political creeps. the language fits, and they should wear it.

Sadly, political correctness starts long before University. That's why two thirds of uni students are now girls...

Our teachers and Education bureaucracy (who write the Curriculum and who teach our teachers how to teach) are deeply biased against the pedogogies and interests of boys.

I believe that boys and girls are equally smart, and that all children deserve an equal start in education. Innocent children should not suffer from the idelogical prejudices of the education bureaucrats.

Up until the 1980's boy and girls got a similar average mark in year 12, and had a similar chance to get into the uni course of their choice.

But then boys results started dropping. By 1996, boys had dropped below girls by 7%! This certainly set off the alarm bells... and since then the NSW Education Department stopped collating figures by gender, and claim under several FOI requests to not have nay idea of boy's results.

According to the ABS... "Several explanations have been suggested to account for the overall changes in HSC results. These include: changes to the HSC curriculum, assessment or scaling processes; increased retention rates; changes to TE score calculations; and the impact of different patterns of subject choices.6 Some of these changes may have favoured girls' approaches to learning, their preferred mode of assessment and their more broadly based subject choices. Analysis of many of these factors suggests that, while they may account for some of the current difference, as yet there is no clear explanation why the relative performance of boys in the HSC has been falling over recent years.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/C2A1E1B677D4AE81CA2570EC00195177?opendocument

One report said tha the average difference now is 20%... That means that girls average 20% better than boys of equal ability!

Don't blame boys being less intelligent than girls, because boys used to do as well as girls, only 20 years ago.

Don't blame boys 'lack of motivation', because teachers are meant to motivate their students.. and if they only motivate the girls and discourage the boys, that is not the fault of bthe boys, that is simply discrimination.

PartTimeParent@pobox.com

"One student was told in an industrial relations class that if she wrote a paper arguing in favour of WorkChoices industrial relations reform, she would be marked down. Another, studying to become a teacher, was forced to read textbooks accusing the Howard government of racism towards Aborigines. A third was welcomed into her classroom with a lecturer's boasts of working as part of the Labor party's successful election campaign."

[1] Don't believe all that students say. I recall walking behind some students in Market Market Street, Sydney, complaining about a tough marker. One the solution their problem was to conspite to complain about the teacher's poor teaching.

[2] A father of a student once confronted ne because I "marked-down" a student [same words as above]. Actually, I gave he zero. Her father owned an nut exporting business and she just copied a pamphlet the copied produced and handed it as an assignment.

[3] In my undregrad., I studied both Psychoanalysis[Freud] and Marx. I have no leaning towards either, but it was/is important to know their work. Both were great thinkers, like their ideas or not. I also was taight about Skinner and Rogers and Adam Smith. So, there is balance.

"A law student contacted us recently concerned that his textbook Economics, Business Ethics & Law declared that the "capitalist ruling class want a system capable of protecting their wealth... "

[4] As do socialists. You don't think Putin is in with the Russian Oliarchs and are you aware he just had the gold re-guilded on the doors one of his palaces.

[Cont.]

[5] Social welfare falls short of socialism and socialism falls short of communism; market capilalism falls short of state capitalism. An ethics question complementing the above is to what "extent" will Capitalist go to protect wealth, the courts, war, slavery. You see it is incremental, and, I would say an apt topic. It doesn't say we should read the Little Read Book or The Manifesto of Communist Party, does it? Yet, the later would be commonly read in a Political Ecomics class.

[6] It is okay to critise textbooks. I encourage it.

p.s. Most High School textbooks state there are three states of matter; solids, liquids and gases. A physcist would disagree and add a fourth, "ions". Yet, schools deliberately teach something, which science knows is wrong. Occassionally, electrons on their outer shells/orbits do detatch from their atoms and still remain matter.

I think Mercurious said it pretty well.

I don't doubt there's more of a left-wing attitude on most universities these days.

The solution isn't to try and stop it, as the Young Liberals campaign appears to have as their goal.

The solution is, to speak up in defence of their own views. If they're presented with facts and figures which shoot them down, well so be it.

Sometimes there will be those who aren't accepting of opposing views. But guess what? The left-wing attitudes which supposedly prevail in universities do so, because from the 1960s onward, students fought to make their views heard from the established orthodoxy.
It was a challenge to the existing structure, yes, but it wasn't about censoring it. It was about persuasion.

You do that, with facts and reasoned argument. To be honest, I don't trust Freitas to do that. He very clearly chooses the name Mohammed Dawood for Hicks - in contravention to the most commonly used one.

Had he simply said Hicks, it wouldn't have damaged his piece, but instead he chooses the more emotive one. One with a political axe to grind.

My point is, I'd sooner trust the status quo than give the Young Liberals and their McCarthyist purge any credence.
If they want to argue their cause, then fine, but don't try and remove the opposing views and influences.

Persuade, instead. This piece doesn't do a very good job of it, because while I acknowledge that left-wing views are more common in university, I think he's cherry picking extreme examples to give his case more credence than it deserves and I know opposite views are still heard, and often valued.

I don't believe in affirmative action on issues like gender or race, and I don't think you can pick and select an 'even' political spectrum, or you'll end up with less competent lecturers with the 'correct' views, to make up the numbers.

Of course, were I to suggest that perhaps there's another reason why more well-educated people lean a little to the left, I'd no doubt provoke some pretty heated responses...

The poor pathetic things.

Like all of the moaners and whingers on the "right" of the culture they presume, both implicity and explicitly, that their point of view is free of any kind of ideological bias, or not conditioned by their environment and the culture they grew up in, and especially in this day and age, the influence of TV which is the 24/7 propaganda machine for the military-industrial-"ENTERTAINMENT" complex.

The TV mind that now rules the world. The "world" in which we now all "live".

EVERY aspect of our individual and collective lives is now SCRIPTED
and shaped by TV

Everything is a form of social engineering. Especially TV.

Most of what most people do (etc) is the result of some TV IMPLANTED message.

The Truman Show was about this all inclusive unconscious scripting and how every body conspires to keep the charade in place.

Truman was not just a single character.

TRUMAN IS US

We are really just a mob of unconscious robots in a mind created world MUMMERY which just goes on and on regardless of anyones ideas.

Any seemingly new idea immediately gets coopted by the system and sold as another consumer product, along with the long since debased ideas and ideals of HIGH culture.

Unfortunately their arent any really new ideas, just a constant recycling of the usual yes, no, and maybe.

As in the endlessly boring and never-ending prescripted and pre-patterned "debate" about evolutionism vs "creationism"

Those on the "left" try to explain the origins and multiple meanings/paradoxes/contradictions etc etc of the world MUMMERY. And perhaps suggest ideas which may ameliorate the inevitable horrors of the dominant world machine

Those on the "right" tell us that we have never had it so good, or wish to return us to the "good old days" when "father" new best.

Did Ward Cleaver or Ossie Nelson really know anything?

Father was essentially a psycho-path sending ALL the generations of young men off to be slaughtered in the never ending wars of Empire.

Meanwhile a real university (UNIVERSAL) education should encourage everyone to fearlessly investigate ALL propositions.

Mercurius, Bushbasher and TRTL,

I'm with you 100% so I won't bother to reiterate all you so competently said. My addition is merely to say that the writer of this article and his mates seem to be a mob of wimps.

The whole point of a University education is to teach one to marshall thoughts coherently and present them cogently. If you don't agree with the line that is being taught get out and do your own research and prove your point.

I finished a Dram/Lit degree with Honours in 2006 and I argued all the way through it. Like a previous poster I neither identify with right or left. My final thesis flew in the face of the established canon of English literature - and especially as it was presented at my University - and I resisted all efforts from the Head of Department down, to get me to change direction.

Was I marked down? Marginalised? Of course not. To this day some of my tutors disagree with me but they invited me to present papers on the subject.

Old mate and his coterie do indeed seem a little precious.

Silly lefties. You obviously don't like having the ability of your ideological comrades to bully students at universities and schools challenged.

I've posted a few responses to your moronic comments.

http://leonbertrand.blogspot.com/2008/05/freitas-speaks-out-for-education-not.html

Keysar Trad on another post suggests the name of a Uni course should change becuase it doesn't reflect his version of the truth.

Posters crawl out from under every right wing rock (??) and attack him mercilessly.

The MaccArthyist Young Liberals begin a campaign of harassment, intimidation and slander against teachers who raise ideas they disagree with, and those same right wing rock dwellers support the witch burners.

Unbelievable. Well actually it is explicable. The extreme right (which now, given their anti-liberal activities, appears to include the Young Liberals) is the enemy of free speech.

I love the evidence. Anecdotes from a few students. One of my comrades was accused in a student newspaper of marxing people down if they didn't agree with his views. Actually there was no basis for this slander, and the paper apologised. But it shows where this is leading. Left wing bad per se. So repress the left wing and burn their books (metaphorically.)

What's wrong with alternative left wing views Young Liberals? That is the ideal of a University in a supposedly free society.

And there is no evidence I know of to support your assertions (straight out of the Janet Albrechtsen school of sloppy journalism) that Universities are infected with lefties.

This is a political campaign to gather the remnants of the Liberals on campus together so they can bag out the Opposition leader in their State - or whatever it is Young Liberals do for fun. Maybe too much chair sniffing has made them a little disoriented.

The really scary thing is these new McCarthyist intellectual giants could be the next generation of Liberal politicians. If you thought Howard was bad, imagine what damage these mean spirited pathetic little metaphorical book burners could do.

I wonder if the grown up Liberals support their childish spawn on this issue?

AJFA,

As the terms “silly”, “left[y]”, “ideological comrades” and “moronic” do not apply to me, I could be forgiven for passing over your response, but instead I checked your reference in case you were making unwarranted assumptions, and, after a clear indication that you were responding to “lefty commenters”, you made a comment on my post. I don’t respond to abuse, only to argument, and I do not post assumptions about other posters. I suggest you adopt the same practice as it will reduce the number of occasions on which you can be shown to be wrong.

Victorian government outlays for 1990/89-91/92 were 12.1 percent of gross state product compared with NSW’s 13.0 percent (Kenneth Davidson, "Audit Commission report a political exercise", The Age, 8/5/1993). Victorian current revenues were 11.2 percent, compared with NSW’s 13.6 percent. In other words, Victoria taxed its economy less than NSW and spent less than NSW, but it borrowed more. If its taxes had been as high as NSW's, it would have been in surplus and been able to provide even better services. As Tim Colebatch pointed out (The Age, 11/9/1993), the coalition-controlled upper house prevented the ALP government from raising adequate taxation to fund decent public services.

In 1992, Victoria had the smallest public sector workforce of all the states, 17.9 percent compared with an average of 19.6 percent (Michael Salvaris, The impact of Liberal/national policies on employment and public sector spending).

Of course, the Liberal damage to education was not just financial. I have posted examples on this site before (e.g., the replacement of history and geography by the awful SOSE), and space precludes my relisting them now.

See if you can come back with an argument to justify calling me a lefty, your particular meaning of which you will need to explain first, and explaining who my “ideological comrades” are and why you think that they are such. Feel free to use words like “bankrupt”, “silly”, “fool” and “moronic” if you can’t come up with any reasoning.

Actually, I'll see Freitas' unattributed anecdotes and raise him with a real, documented one. It happened to me.

At the end of the 1st year of my degree, before I was known to the Faculty as anything other than just another student number, and two years before I had published a single piece anywhere espousing my views on education, I wrote a very strongly-worded two-page letter addressed to my course-co-ordinator, signed with my name and student number, in which I offered a very strong critique of a particular course, the chief lecturer, the course content, the assignments and the semester examination. While my letter was (sort-of) respectful in tone, it was also very forceful in denouncing what I saw as great deficiencies in the course. I did not leave anything to the imagination.

If my course lecturers had been anything other than professionals, if they were anything like the partisan collective that Freitas imputes, they would've read that letter, stamped my file with a big red stamp saying "ratbag", and gently ushered me out of the degree with a steady string of fails.

Instead, I got a Distinction. I'd take that as evidence that, surprise suprise, experienced professionals and educators can differentiate between a student's academic work and their other opinions, and assess each on their merits (I never got a reply to the letter!). Freitas probably doesn't agree because it's something he himself seems incapable of doing.

This campaign is every bit as politically partisan as it accuses academics of being.

Still, Freitas' piece will play well to the peanut gallery and might even achieve its political purpose of impugning academics and narrowing the boundaries of academic freedom and expression. What a noble enterprise for a young man to devote the early part of his career. He must be so proud.

Renegade....

<<"...far-left opinions have been allowed to flourish on university campuses." Allowed?! Call the army! What? Should they have been stopped specifically?>>

Not the army, but the Equal Opportunity Commission. IF... students are told that if they mention or support certain things, they will be marked DOWN.. it is grounds for legal action.

This applies to both 'Left' doctrinaire lecturers AND 'Right'.

What should be STOPPED is the promotion of specific Left/Right ideas as though they are 'Gospel' and that any alternative is 'Rubbish/evil'

If we are studying Economics.. a responsible lecturer will outline the various approaches and leave the students to decide about them, and enable them to discuss the merits/deficiencies of each approach.....no?

So..YES they should be STOPPED.... (anyone) from pushing their particular 'wing' idea if it is done in any way resembling brain washing, force, intimidation or indoctrination.

I call Mercurious' 'warm fuzzy distinction' and raise it MANY examples of students ridiculed, failed, warned, berated, abused, for having either 'balanced' ideas about gender..or.. simply having Christian ideas.

I went to their website and had a look at the courses listed.

it seems pretty biased to me - it's all about gender and class:

Colour: Identity and Difference - ATSI3005
Whiteness is generally assumed to be the norm in classifying difference. It is also assumed to be neutral. Delves into whiteness as a mode of identification and whether it can be assumed to be the norm as well as neutral. Topics include whiteness as Other, whiteness as a non-Indigenous identity, and whiteness in coloniser societies. Explorations of whiteness as a representation of oppression and as transformation will be addressed.

Women and Men: Gender in Australia - AUST2034
Considers how gender relations shaped Australian society, culture and politics. Situates gender in relation to race, class, age, place and religion over 220 years of Australian history. Topics may include: frontier mythologies, Aboriginal experience and gender, gender and the Pacific frontier, gender and law, gender and the arts, gender and domestic ideology, gender and religion, gender and work, feminisms.

Australian Cultural & Social Environments - AUST2009
Changes to urbanism over time, including contemporary perspectives, such as postcolonialism and critical race theory. Case studies engage the varied experience of urbanism by ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationalism. Examines issues of place representation, territory, heritage and socio-economic inequality.

http://www.younglibs.org.au/site//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=45&Itemid=70

Rightwingrules,
Exactly.

If you are white and male, best not enroll.

The situation is becoming similar in high schools, and if a white, male student wants a high OP score, best to stay away from social science, art and history.

White males are the bad guys, even though they built the schools and universities.

rightwingrules,

Out of an entire prospectus you proffer three courses which you give as assertive evidence for this article? This is hardly the application of scholarship. If you deconstruct each precis you will notice the use of the verbs:-
"assumed", "Devles into" "explores" [explorations of]"addressed". (Colour: Identity and Difference - ATSI3005)

"examines" Australian Cultural & Social Environments - AUST2009

As for Women and Men: Gender in Australia - AUST2034 this "considers"
aspects of gender within various paradigms.

Those who are not interested in examining how various viewpoints regarding gender, race or sociology came into being and operate in society need not include these courses. Pretty simple, really.

Throughout University I studied the mythology and historicism of the Bible, of Withcraft, and comparative religions. I am not a Christian nor do I belong to any religious denomination. I freely chose to take up some of the courses on offer as electives - just as I chose to reject others. Does this make a case for claiming that Universities are saturated in religious dogma and rallying the troops to have all such courses banned?

Stick with Uni, mate. You have much to learn.

BOAZ_David says:

"If we are studying Economics.. a responsible lecturer will outline the various approaches and leave the students to decide about them, and enable them to discuss the merits/deficiencies of each approach.....no?"

Actually, no, Boaz. Ever been to an economics lecture? Many of the lecturers are neo-liberals and alternative views don't get a look in.

I don't see the new McCarthyists campaigning against this "heinous crime". Perhaps because it is their Weltanschauung being taught. (Yeah, look it up, YLs!)

Boaz mentions Christian perspectives. Religion is worthy of study. That doesn't mean a Christian perspective can inform rational analysis. I don't see how something irrational can inform rational discourse in the sciences for example. There may be a spot for such irrationality in analysing political and social issues and like a stopped clock it might be right sometimes i.e. even provide some insights.

I assume there are insightful religionists. Keysar Trad on another post on OLO tried but he too failed because he is caught in the same mindset as you, Boaz.

Liberation theology has an interesting approach. And Spong is worth reading. But dogmatic religious fundamentalism? No mind using this tool will provide adequate rational analysis capable of being accepted in the halls of rational thought.

Anyway, the political attack by these intellectuals is beyond the pale. "I disagree with you so you should be sacked." Unbelievable rubbish from supposed Uni students. It just highlights the irrelevancy of the Liberals in the battle of ideas (and the inadequacy of our education system to train people to think critically. But maybe it is the closed shop of the Liberals producing that. A closed shop politically leads to a closed mind analytically.) How appropriate that a dunder head like Nelson leads them. What a role model for these Young Liberals and their moral, political and social turpitude. (Yeah. Look it up!)

Romany,
There are more than three courses listed in the actual web-site.

I have “delved” into similar courses from another university, and I think that the sooner gender vilification laws are introduced the better.

Not one single positive word was said about males in the entire curriculum, with every negative term possible being applied to the male gender. So much for balance.

Passy,
Did you learn the term “dunderhead” from a balanced social science course. Seems rather abusive.

On Wealth: A communist? Mao Revisited Perhaps?

“…among the ancient Romans, the lands of the rich were all cultivated by slaves, who wrought under an overseer, who was likewise a slave; so that a poor freeman had little chance of being employed either as a farmer or as a labourer. All trades and manufactures too, even the retail trade, were carried on by the slaves of the rich for the benefit of their masters, whose wealth, authority, and protection made it difficult for a poor freeman to maintain the competition against them. The citizens, therefore, who had no land, had scarce any other means of subsistence” – Mao? - No - Adam Smith [1776]

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Volume: 2. Contributors: Adam Smith [1776]- author. Clarendon Press. Oxford. Publication Year: 1976 Edition.[ p.557.]

[1] Smith's is saying that the ability to generate wealth is not so dissimilar to Marx's notion our station in life is related to ownership or non-ownership of the means of production. Based on the above, an excellent 101 class question might be; "Is Adam Smith a Communist?" Students then can read both Smith [in context] and Marx [in context]. And THINK.

[2] Capitalism vis~a~vis Wealth generation needs a context. Moreover, alternatives. I see no problem in discussing say The Labour Theory of Value in an Orthodox Economics class. Before 1900, Economics was more closely aligned with sociology; e.g., Marx & Co.

Not More teaching, less preaching, rather: More scope, and more independent thinking and less dogmatic teaching and no preaching. Open systems; not closed.

HRS says:

"Passy,
"Did you learn the term “dunderhead” from a balanced social science course. Seems rather abusive."

You're correct. I apologise to all dunderheads for bringing Brendan Nelson into their circle.

But my comment, although flippant, does reflect a reality for the Liberals, from leadership problems in WA to Victoria to the Federal party, coupled with recriminations in NSW and the dominance there of the extreme right, The Liberal Party looks at the moment incapable of establishing itself as an alternative Government or as a party of alternative ideas.

The Young Liberals' foray into the politics of fear (and perhaps envy of those who have the capacity to think critically) just shows how widespread the political bankruptcy of the Liberals is. John Howard's legacy has been to destroy the Party as a viable flexible thinking representative of the ruling class. (That role has passed to the ALP).

Instead we find the politics exemplified by the Young Liberals of trying to coalesce a small group around a straw person enemy, in this case "left-wing" academics.

The process is the same with racism - find an enemy and appeal to that section of society which fears those who are different physically or in the case of some academics politically and mentally.

As Victoria shows it is then not too far to anti-semitism, although I know the Liberals won't campaign around this. Some of them will just think it. Far better to target academics, as the young Liberals have done, or Muslims as their grown up version did.

The politics of hate are no way forward if the Liberals want to replace Labor as the natural party of the bourgeoisie.

Passy,
I’m not sure of the university you went to, but the term “dunderhead” still seems rather passé and abusive, similar to calling whites “imperialists” or males “oppressors”.

If you are male and white, best to enroll in a maths or science course (and I do not include social science as a science). Otherwise the lecturer may label you an oppressive, imperialistic dunderhead, and you will then have the task of arguing with the lecturer that you are not.

The issue of academic freedom and whether academics should be presenting their own biased or prejudiced viewpoints has been around in countries such as the US for some decades, and I do not think the US has the Young Liberals.

See Academic Bill Of Rights developed by the Students for Academic Freedom.

http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/documents/1925/abor.html

"Instead we find the politics exemplified by the Young Liberals of trying to coalesce a small group around a straw person enemy, in this case "left-wing" academics."

Passy,

The NAZIS did the same thing, as above, in 1930s to win ower; put fear into the middle-class, farmers and merchants. The weakther groups could see their underclass, whom they looked down on and didn't want become them. Here, as noted, the key word is fear. The NAZIs made those with some wealth afraid of the Jews and socialists* [portrayed as cummunists]. They feared loosing their status. A bit like making an Indian Brahmin fear s/he might become an untouchable.

It wasn't a massive campaign. Jst hundreds of Pauline Hansons placed into small towns. Where much is heard about German's debt because of reparations too little about the micro-side of things.

* The NAZIs actually adopted the socialists' reconstruction policies, thems.

Academia is full to the brim of extreme lefties perhaps the PE Department and the Liberal Arts will attract more than its fair show by virture of the discipline. But Academics autonomy over all and liberalism in the philisophic sense of the world, i.e, independent thinking and autonomy from govenment influence, including the left.

The Coalition is to the right of Liberalism. The ALP seems to transitioning from a Leftist party, towards the progressive Right, to a true Liberal Party. The Unions are loosing power; but, in the Coalition the Farmers, are still a powerful self-centred special interest group. The Farmers weild much more power than academics, politically

Actually HRS, in my callow youth I set up a course called Political Economy and Tax. It got an OK number of students in the first two years, including curious Young liberals. They did OK rebutting my arguments.

Then numbers fell. So I cancelled the course. The all knowing market wasn't ready for such a course, I guess.

But the point is that Unis are not hotbeds of radicalism. If there were all these lefties running courses and inculcating their ideas into students, gee, surely that would reflect itself in a radical student population and a militant group of teachers striking often for higher wages and better conditions. I must have missed something because my impression of campus these days is that all is quiet except for a small group of lefties of various persuasions, most of whom are too small to really influence any outcomes.

Maybe it is true their attempts at brainwashing fail. I think a better explanation is that there isn't brainwashing but intellectual enquiry and debate. Most students accept a diversity of views and have enough self-confidence to be able to argue their own point of view successfully, and undertake analysis and research appropriately through the prism of their own world view. This apparently is not the case for the Young liberals.

So it may be their attacks on free speech are a reflection of their own insecurities about their place in the world and the worth of their own ideas.

I just think all of this nonsense is a poor attempt by the YLs to silence those they disagree with, and to rebuild their base around simplistic ideas of hate and fear. This appears to be a hangover from the Howard era, so it is possible like most generals the Young Liberals are fighting the last war, not the present one.

Mr Right,

The ABS Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey suggests that, contrary to the widespread claims of dumbing down over the past few decades, older people have lower levels of literacy than younger people:
‘Literacy levels tended to decrease with age, with higher proportions of people in the older age groups attaining skill scores lower than Level 3. The exception to this was the 15 to 19 years age group, which had lower levels of literacy than the 20 to 24 year age group.’

The PISA tests ((PISA2006_PISAinbrief.pdf) are developed by the OECD and have a good level of trustworthiness. I don’t know of anyone ever claiming any “fudging” in them.

HRS,

I’d take complaints from parents and students with a grain of salt. I once failed an essay that a student had copied from an encyclopedia. I asked her to redo it under my supervision, but her mother defended her right to copy and the student refused to repeat the topic. She could easily spin the story as one about me not passing her work because I disagreed with her opinion.

Today’s Australian reports bias from the University of Queensland as a student union president “associated with the Liberal Party” has justified a ban on a poster being put on campus:
‘Asked if it precluded other viewpoints being put forward in debate on campus, he said: “It does.”’
(“Student body forbids ‘anti-abortion’ poster”)

There was also a report on tonight’s ABC news of a university academic being told by his university to apologise for expressing an opinion on radio re a drug made by CSL, a company in partnership with the university. Another not so left example of free speech under attack.

AJFA,

More examples of Liberal damage to education that had nothing to do with saving money are:
The ministerial order banning teachers debating education,
The abolition of the teacher registration boards,
The placement of teachers on short-term contracts,
The introduction of performance bonuses,
The abolition of local administrative committees,
Discrimination against parents who were also teachers in school council elections.

"Actually HRS, in my callow youth I set up a course called Political Economy and Tax. It got an OK number of students in the first two years, including curious Young liberals. They did OK rebutting my arguments." - Passy

The Political Economy Department at The University of Sydney might be receptive. The Late Ted Wheelwright's creation. Marxism and Instiuitional Economics are taught. John Hewson gave the more orthodox lessons.

Try Professor Frank Stilwell or Dr sterwart Rosewarne, both are really friendly, and provided the curriculum is well written, would, I suspect, support you. If not, perhaps, an article in JAPE.

I would have loved have met Veblen. Seemingly, a brilliant but eccentric character, especially on the topic of the diversity dogs and pecuniary emulation of the upper classes by the not-so-well-to-do. :-) More seriously, Veblen did predict that the too rapid advancement from feudal to advanced societies was dangerous: i.e, Germany and Japan. [High power distance {Mulder, Hofstede} and high technology.

The above doctrines are Left of me, politically, but I would acknowledge threads on insightful observations by many authors.

In the nineteen century, when economics and sociology were enjoined, and now, The Law is an apt topic to discuss: e.g., Transitions of industrial laws from Dickens to now. Heaps of Compare and Contrast for students to discuss.

Did you note Adam Smith's [1776] comments above not being far removed from Marx? Had it been falsely stated, it was written by Marx, the Young Liberals would have attacked it as Communism. Perhaps, it is not the ideology that wins hearts, rather the filterer, whom presents the ideology to its audience.

Cheers.

Chris C,
I don’t think teachers should be completely dismissive of students or parents. I’ve attended a lot of chemistry classes, and I’ve seen some virtual learning programs recently that were the equal to (if not better) than any chemistry class with a teacher I have attended, and one program that covered chemistry up to grade 12 sold for only $10.

University correspondence courses have also been around for many years, and the situation is developing where it is not that necessary to have an actual teacher standing in front of a class, particularly if the teacher has obvious prejudices, whether they be gender, race, class or political prejudices.

Not listening to students or parents may also be the reason why so many parents have now taken their children from government schools.

Passy,
Most things go in circles, and if someone keeps going to the left or right, they will probably go in a circle.

However as I have shown in a previous post, the Young Liberals are not the only people in Australia or elsewhere who are concerned about the biases or prejudices being shown by teachers in universities or in high schools.

As indicated to Chris C, teachers are not that necessary, and if they do have obvious prejudices, they are simply hastening the demise of the teaching profession (or speeding up the introduction of more virtual learning systems).

As Basil Fawlty might comment, this article specializes in stating "the bleedin' obvious". Diversity of views is good, debate is good, but these key elements to open thought and education have been lacking in our Australian education system - for decades. The bar-faced Left-bias and stifling of debate starts in Primary School, progresses to High School and becomes all-encompassing by the time students reach University.

There is only 1 allowable opinion on the issues of Iraq, David Hicks, the economy, Workchoices, aboriginal issues. Any attempt to perceive an issue from a different viewpoint is supressed.

I attended 10 different schools from Primary to University, across several state school systems. The problem was consistent wherever I went. Although I was a top student, it was always made painfully clear that I had to tow the line on the narrow political views of my teachers. I have been personally marked down and scolded for having a reasonable, non-emotive but different view on issues.

The only amusement I get from this discussion is the claim by anyone that this bias isn't apparent, all-pervading and obvious. To deny it exists stretches credibility too far.

Hopefully something can be done about it, for the betterment of our students and our nation.

I think the point of the original article is that people of one viewpoint are unhappy that people of a different viewpoint have the numbers in a field that the first set of people won’t enter themselves. The solution is obvious: more right-wingers will have to put up with the overwork, the stress, the mistreatment, the constant pointless change, the comparatively poor pay and the ceaseless denigration that all those “lefties” in schools and universities put up with.

You are a total fool Chris.

In relation to your last comment, what you are essentially saying is that non-left students ought to be bullied and discriminated against because most of them are not interested in joining the academic profession. That is the most stupid and illogical view I have seen put forward in a long time.

If you believe it's ok to persecute others on the basis of their political beliefs, I suggest you go to Cuba or China, where you will be ruled by people of the same view. I bet you are a lefty who supports Chavez and Hamas and thinks that Saddaam should never have been overthrown. Well I think I now know why.

In relation to your previous points:

- The ministerial order banning teachers debating education.

Like all public sector departments, public servants are supposed to be politically impartial. Some teachers tend to want to politicise education. Of course they should not in the conduct of their occupations. Taxpayers pay them to teach, not to argue for the introduction of Marxism into English and history classes.


- The abolition of the teacher registration boards

This is in accordance with making education a more modern profession, where teachers are not approved or registered by bureaucrats, but are free to be employed by the department as the department sees fit.

- The placement of teachers on short-term contracts.

There's nothing wrong with this, given that it allows for flexible schools who can employ staff in accordance with their requirements.

- The introduction of performance bonuses

lol. There's something wrong with this? That's hilarious. Obviously providing incentives for good performance is just soooo wrong!

- Discrimination against parents who were also teachers in school council elections.

This is fair enough, given that teachers already exercise more power and influence than parents. The last thing we want is a concentration of power into the hands of a small clique.

AJFA,

No, I did not say that non-left students should be bullied or discriminated against. There is a contradiction in your suggesting that I might believe that ‘it's ok to persecute others on the basis of their political beliefs’ – something I most definitely do not believe, something I have given no indication of ever believing either on this forum or anywhere else and something which I have opposed for 40 years - and your supporting the ministerial order banning teachers debating education, which had nothing to do with the classroom but purported to prevent teachers making public comment on educational issues, something that all citizens should be free to do in a democracy, irrespective of their profession, and a right that you now deny in a discussion supposedly about freedom on campuses.

The teacher registration boards did not consist of bureaucrats but teachers, teacher educators and employer representatives, in the same way that doctors have a Medical Practitioners Board and nurses have a Nurses Board. The department used to employ people with no teaching qualifications at all until the Hamer Liberal Government established the teacher registration system in the 1970s. We are fortunate that the Bracks Labor Government has re-established it via the Victorian Institute of Teaching.

Short-term contracts were not necessary to allow flexibility in employment prior to 1992. They were introduced to intimate teachers who might speak up for themselves and to better allow exploitation by principals.

Performance bonuses did not provide incentives for good performance. They simply concentrated power in the hands of the principals in order to carry out the government’s political agenda.

There is yet another contradiction in that you rightly object to discrimination against students but accept discrimination against teachers who happen to be parents. Power could not be concentrated in a small clique as parents elected their parent members who formed the majority on school councils. Surely, it is up to them if they think that a parent who is also a teacher –at another school – is their best representative.

Correction: ‘intimidate teachers’

Making bets about what I would believe is not an argument. Indeed it has just led you to make some more assumptions for which you have no evidence, for which you can have no evidence. I hope you are never a judge. You may think you ‘know why’ I supposedly would want to live in China or Cuba or support Chavez and Hamas, but there is no logical connection between anything I have posted and this particular list.

Cuba is a fraudulent communist dictatorship that locks up dissidents. How can I, unlike you, a believer in freedom of speech even for teachers, possibly support such a government? China is a one-party state that is freer than 30 years ago but much less free than it needs to be. How can I, unlike you, a supporter of parents’ rights to elect fellow parents, even if they are teachers, to school councils, support such a government? I don’t want to live in either place.

Chavez is a nutty would-be dictator. How can I, an activist for political freedom for 40 years, support such a person? I don’t. Hamas is a terrorist organization. How can I, an advocate for the peaceful processes of democracy and a long-time opponent of violence, support such an organisation? I don’t. Saddam needed to be overthrown, but the doing of it has been a disaster. There is nothing I have said that provides any evidence for your claims that I would support any of these. They constitute just another standard list used as substitutes for reasoning.

Nothing I have said here makes me a ‘lefty’ in any mainstream political discourse, but I can live with the label as it tells me how far to the right the centre is on your political spectrum and, insofar as you are representative of Liberals, how far to the right the party of Sir Robert Menzies has moved. Perhaps that is why he stopped voting for it.

Chris Curtis
(Vice-president, Victorian DLP, 1976-78)

Chris,

I have re-read your comment and I have concluded I was too lazy to read it carefully. I have therefore mis-judged you. For that I apologise.

I don't agree with you on all of the education stuff, but I should have been more polite.

Sorry mate.

AJFA,

I accept your apology. People tend to get very heated on blogs, and far worse than you I might add. I try to stick to the issues. I think the Liberals have moved to the right, and so has the ALP. In fact, on economic issues, IR, welfare, regulation, etc, today’s ALP is to the right of the old DLP.

In my day, the ‘Left’ smashed property, imprisoned you and bashed you up while expressing mad beliefs in the Great Helmsman Mao. Nowadays the ‘Left’ is anyone, including former officials of the DLP, who opposes WorksocalledChoices.

I am sure there are cases of misuse of power by academics and teachers, and they cannot be justified, but I think they are rare. I never saw an example of political bias by a teacher in my 33 years. In other cases, bias is in the eye of the beholder. So someone of a left opinion will see his or her view as perfectly logical and not understand how anyone could see it as biased. The same applies to people with right opinions. Thus, if there were more righties in academia, students would see a wider range of views. However, it is up to righties to join. No one can make them, and there Is not much point complaining for m the sidelines. Please note that I use terms like left and right as fuzzy approximations that in fact conceal lots of variation. Thus, as a former official of the DLP, I think of myself as a centre left social democrat, even though many saw the DLP as far right - a view that never made any sense to me.

You can be anti-WorkChoices, pro-education and anti-Castro at the same time. Not everything fits into the old left-right divide. There is at least one former La Trobe Maoist, Barry York, who has written to the press supporting the US invasion of Iraq – to give a bizarre example of pick and choose.

On economic issues, things have certainly moved to the right. On some social issues however, we seem to have moved to the left, in terms of gay rights and discrimination against other races for instance.

"You can be anti-WorkChoices, pro-education and anti-Castro at the same time. Not everything fits into the old left-right divide"

Very true. You are obviously moderate left, except on some social issues. I have written an article abt some of the many problems in the old left right divide: http://leonbertrand.blogspot.com/2008/03/introducing-horseshoe-theory.html

Here's a story on some of the bias I experienced at uni: http://leonbertrand.blogspot.com/2008/02/griffith-law-school-leftist-clique.html

The following statements by the fbi and the cia are their public statements of their "PRIORITIES" AND "MISSION".
• Terrorism
• Counterintelligence
• Cyber
• Public Corruption
• Civil Rights
• Organized Crime
• White Collar Crime
• Major Thefts/Violent Crime

cia:
"The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an independent US Government agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior US policymakers."

Sosbee writes:
The fbi and the cia engage in criminal offenses of the macabre type in each and every category listed below:

• Terrorism- Both the fbi and the cia are together the most serious threat to Mankind
• Counterintelligence- The two groups are experts in terrorizing, torturing and killing the Target by high tech methods (including space based weaponry & advanced bio/chem/viral new science) and by low minded street thugs in their employ as operatives.
• Cyber- Both agencies use Cyber as a tool for the planned total subjugation of human beings on earth and space permanently.
• Public Corruption-By selective prosecution, the fbi and the cia insure that friends will be protected, especially those in Congress, the Courts, and key employees in the executive and administrative departments and agencies.
• Civil Rights- The fbi's charade of investigating civil rights violations are more and more apparent as the people's rights are violated across the land every day by police, fbi, and cia outrageous trangressions.
• Organized Crime-The fbi and the cia are preeminently organized crime; their snitches, informants and assassins on the street (and a few others) know this.
• White Collar Crime- The fbi and the cia often wear white shirts in public to obscure their dark and homicidal personal characters.
• Major Thefts/Violent Crime- Both the fbi and the cia benefit from and relish violence and these government agencies often provoke violence in order to arrest or murder their Targets.

Finally, the world's population has no viable peaceful recourse against the government beasts whom I and others describe in our websites, etc

AJFA,

I checked this thread for comments for a few days after my post of the 21st and then did not come back to it for some time, so I did not see your response until long after you submitted it.

I agree that the old left-right divide isn’t up to the job. After all, it was the Republicans who freed the slaves in the US.

The extremes of both sides meet in the way you describe on your reference. Totalitarianism is not good, whether it is communist or fascist, though there are a few strange souls around who are trying to convince the world that the Nazis were left-wing because they had the world “socialist” in their name. Strangely, these same people do not regard the German Democratic Republic as having been democratic just because it has “democratic” in its name.

I don’t doubt the existence of bias at uni - or anywhere else for that matter. I just doubt that it is widespread.

Hi Chris,

I blame myself for being so slow in responding.

In terms of how widespread bias is, its definately hard to measure. There should be studies conducted like theyw ere in the United States:

"A recent article in The Economist (reprinted in The Australian on December 15) bemoaned the lack of political diversity in American universities. It contended," “Academe is simultaneously both the part of the US that is most obsessed with diversity and the least diverse part of the country".

It pointed to a survey of more than 1,000 academics that showed that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by something like seven to one in the humanities and social sciences. " http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2900

7 to 1 is quite a margin. If the numbers are similar in Australia, then bias could be assumed to be widespread. But of course, we can only speculate.