The young Libs have been taken over by the far right Religious nuts just like the NSW Lib party. Neither of these groups have had a thought of their own for 50 years. They take their queues from the US far right. Anybody who has looked at what is going on over there knows " Academic Freedom" is just another way of selling far right religious fundamentalism.

Thank you for adding this thoughtful article on a interesting topic, Dr Gelber.

As someone with an research interest in Free Speech, do you really think that this enquiry by the Australian Senate is likely to have the effect of shutting it down, even marginally? Isn't it more likely to promote debate than to stifle it? After all, who is afraid of Australian Senators (except possibly Bob Brown)? Also, presumably there will be Senators of more than one party involved in the enquiry - so at this point one really couldn't predict what its conclusions might be.

We have already seen these rightwing governments Labor and Liberal 'lean on' academics to 'adjust' and 'upgrade' substandard exam qualifications for full fee paying students. A survey of almost 1,000 academics in social sciences back in 2001, across the country conducted by the Australia Institute, revealed that universities were giving full fee-paying students preferential treatment, including altering exam results and PASSING students who had failed. University administrations, ordered by the government, will seek to silence or intimidate dissenters as commercial considerations which are generating enormous profits from full fee payers increasingly dominate university life. Let us not forget university education was paid for a couple of times over through taxes before big hex and upfront fees were added creating a bonanza for the governments and their predatory cronies. Moreover big administration costs jumped sharply back in about 2000 for often minimal services students were already entitled too. These are very criminal practises against society when you exploit and milk students to the hilt. Obviously, criminal practises then become the norm all down the line. And Academia will be told to toe the line!
Let us also not forget the governments pulverised and cauterised the ABC of any dissension or critical comments - bringing in a dumbing down process to deaden the senses of the public. As well as deadening the senses through all the cuts to the Arts and culture - in order to degrade and debase society!

Good article, Katharine.

The Young Liberals' campaign (and now the Senate enwuiry) are very dangerous because they are attacks on academic freedom.

This is a trend that has been going on for some time, pushed by both versions of Conservatism in Australia. I am thinking here for example of the curtailing of freedoms in the name of the war on terror, the imprisonment of David Hicks and so on. This creeping monolith of conservative thought needs to be opposed.

As a murderous stalinist once wrote (correctly I believe: "Let a humdred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend." Conservatives (from the stalinists to the religious right via the ALP and Liberals and Nationals) want to destroy the garden of oppositional thought.

Oh relax, Passy - nothing the Young Libs do is extremely dangerous...

I think that there have always been some pretty profound biases in academia which have had enormous consequences. I’m talking about all the sorts of studies and educational directions that are geared towards the continuous expansion of our economy, population and society, in a most directly unsustainable and environmentally damaging manner.

This is what our politicians, economists and business people have been demanding. Therefore, it is largely what academia has been concentrating on. It is what gets funded!

Sustainability-oriented studies and academics have by and large struggled badly, as they have had to go against the political tide and have had to be critical of key aspects of our dominant social and economic paradigm – which is profoundly based on continuous unending expansionism.

Even with a greatly increased awareness and sense of urgency about sustainability in recent times, this is still by far the most significant form of bias involved in academia.

Governments are supposed to mitigate the downsides of the profit motive and the constant push for more production, bigger markets and more workers….and protect our future wellbeing!! They have failed dismally.

Academics and their institutions are supposed to recognise the areas in need of study, with one of their prime motives surely being the protection of our society and the achievement of the sacred balance between all things human and the environment… and between resource consumption and waste production, and the ability of the environment to keep providing the necessary resources and absorbing the impacts in an ongoing manner. Surely one of the prime motives of academia has got to be this sort of thing, given that our future wellbeing is so strongly under threat. Academics too have failed dismally.