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.