New book claims University of Melbourne’s teachings once driven by racism

The University of Melbourne forgot the “basic humanity” of Indigenous people, and much of what it once studied, taught and preached was driven by racism, according to a new book.

A new book concludes that the university forgot the ‘basic humanity’ of Indigenous people by its complicity in scientific racism. Picture: David Geraghty

Racism drove much of what the University of Melbourne once studied, taught and preached, according to a new book that examines its “troubled and complex” relationship with Indigenous people.

The authors of Dhoombak Goobgoowana, which translates as “truth-telling”, conclude that the university forgot the “basic humanity” of Indigenous people by its complicity in scientific racism.

The first of a two-volume work being put out by Melbourne University Publishing and featuring more than 60 authors, reflects on the institution’s early benefactors who were either implicated in or benefited from the theft of land, wealth and labour.

It considers human remains used by the university, which was the epicentre of eugenics thought in Australia.

The university has renamed buildings and removed artworks that bowed to historical leaders whose research, attitudes and beliefs fostered the notion of white superiority. Picture: David Geraghty

Eugenics theory held that the human race could be ­improved by selective breeding, and was long ago relabelled as “scientific racism”.

In recent decades, amid a growing clamour to re-examine unpalatable truths that had been forgotten or deliberately erased, the university has renamed buildings and removed artworks that bowed to historical leaders whose research, attitudes and beliefs fostered the notion of white superiority.

Chief among these is the university’s “most notorious eugenicist”, Professor Richard Berry, who ran the anatomy department for 23 years from 1906 and collected skulls.

He believed that head size could measure intelligence.

Professor Marcia Langton is one of the authors and editors of the book.

The Berry Collection gathered 700 human skeletal ­remains, many Indigenous, including at least four children.

He concluded Indigenous males had the equivalent intelligence of a 13-year-old schoolboy.

In 2003, the remains in collection were repatriated with funds for reburial and a university acknowledgment of the “hurt and understandable ­indignation” the collection had long provoked. The Berry Building was later renamed.

Indigenous elder Uncle Jim Berg in 2019 pushed the need for an examination of the relationship between Indigenous people and the university.

The book follows student-led campaigns to rename buildings that honoured university leaders who promoted primitive and cruel policies.

Berry’s replacement as president of the Eugenics Society of Victoria was Wilfred Agar, a science dean who published a book in 1943 that urged restrictions on the breeding of “mentally deficient” people.

The university’s first chair of botany was Alfred Ewart, who in the 1920s wrote newspaper columns, including thoughts such as these: “Blacks have the mentality and irresponsibility of a child”.

One of the book authors and editors, Professor Marcia Langton, says it assembles facts that “give a very different view of the past than the myth”.

“To move forward we must tell the truth,” said vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell. “We need to face up to the effect this history has had and continues to have on the Indigenous community.”