Andrew Bolt: Forcing university students to parrot race politics is ‘intellectual thuggery’ in the highest regard

Academic staff seem to think their job is to badger students into dancing to their tribal war drums when it comes to the hatred of “colonial” Australia. This is not education but indoctrination, Soviet-style.

A student I shall call “Michael” wants to teach sport, so paid Monash University for a degree course in primary and physical education.

Little did Michael know Monash is one of the universities where academics today abuse their power to force students to parrot their race politics and hatred of “colonial” Australia.

How is this tolerated in universities supposedly devoted to free inquiry and free speech?

For Michael, the penny started to drop when a lecturer ordered students to give an Acknowledgement of Country before presenting anything to their class.

Says Michael: “I had a class where seven welcome to countries were given in two hours.”

Worse was to come. It seems no student may get even a degree in physical education from Monash without being forced to study and adopt the anti-Australia tribalism and resentments of Aboriginal extremists.

Michael – who, remember, just wants to teach kids sport – was given an entire assessment task ominously called “First Nations futures: Sovereignty, strength and justice in education, HPE, health and sport”.

Students had to write a 1600-word piece to prove they were on board with the activists. They were told to “demonstrate engagement with First Nations perspectives and knowledge”, “engage with and draw on First Nations scholars, Elders, community leaders and activists”, and “provide a decolonial and/or anti-racist and/or sovereignty-focused response”.

Monash is one of the universities where academics today abuse their power to force students to parrot their race politics and hatred of “colonial” Australia. Picture: Ben Clark

Yes, they were actually made to write something that called for Australia to be “decolonised” and surrender political “sovereignty” to other Australians identifying as Aboriginal.

I have even Aboriginal friends who oppose that racist agenda, but here’s a university demanding even PE students follow it, whether they believe it or not.

What an insult to their intelligence.

This is not education but indoctrination, Soviet-style. How many other universities subject students to this intellectual thuggery?

Then came the questions in Michael’s assignment.

Michael was asked to choose from various themes, including “education, decolonising schools and Indigenous pedagogies”, which had questions like this: “How are First Nations educators decolonising curriculum and advancing First-Nations knowledge systems.”

Pardon? Knowledge is now defined by race, not truth?

Another theme was “sport: resistance, inclusion, and systemic change”, including this question: “How do Indigenous-led sporting organisations challenge mainstream sport’s colonial structures?”

There’s a warning for footy fans. You think the AFL is already too political? Wait until these university-indoctrinated sports graduates take over, hot to dismantle “sport’s colonial structures”, whatever they may be.

I’ll give one last example from this hard-Left assignment, masquerading as a degree in sports education.

Another theme, “media, storytelling, and cultural resurgence”, asks these wannabe sports teachers to describe how “First Nations storytelling traditions … provide frameworks for decolonisation”, and how “First Nations media challenge the whitewashing of Australian history”.

Monash University students had to write a 1600-word piece to prove they were on board with the activists. Picture: file image

Is this a sports education assignment? Or prep for a Lidia Thorpe Invasion Day rally?

I’m staggered that Monash University staff think their job is to badger and humiliate students into dancing to their tribal war drums.

I say “humiliate” because Michael is not the only student who fundamentally opposes this tribalism, but doesn’t dare say much for fear of being failed. Some students have resisted Monash’s race warriors, though. One even had some success.

Two years ago, an engineering student – also anonymous out of fear – formally complained at being forced to include an Acknowledgement of Country on a final year assignment or lose marks. The university that time backed down, and even restored marks deducted from the student’s earlier progress report.

How naive am I? I thought the university had learned its lesson.

I should have known better, especially after reporting for years how identity politics – especially race politics – had overwhelmed our universities.

The poor students! At primary school they’d been shown the film “Rabbit Proof Fence”, which told a fictional story of the “stolen generations”.

Now at university, they’re getting the full-court press.

Queensland University, for instance, is one of several that divides students by race and has a room just for students identifying as Aboriginal.

Melbourne University hired Bruce Pascoe as an Enterprise Professor in the discipline of “Indigenous Agriculture”, even though he can’t prove his Aboriginal heritage, and will this year host a symposium to “scrutinise pathways to decolonise astronomy, and discuss ways Indigenous knowledge can guide modern astrophysics”.

Western Sydney University employed Professor Kerrie Doyle as an Associate Dean in Indigenous Health, even though she claims to belong to a “Winninninni” tribe that never existed.

Pity the students having this tribal poison beaten into them, knowing their lecturers could fail them for resisting this disastrous closing of the Western mind.