If what happened at RMIT University in Melbourne last week was a one-off event, it could be laughed at as the behaviour of a single rogue academic.

But the pity is that the actions of a senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at RMIT University, Hormoz Marzbani, neatly encapsulates the intellectual crisis at Australia's universities. Our universities now engage in partisan politics and ideological barracking not disinterested intellectual inquiry.