Why the government is unwilling to support universities

In my first year of university, I took a class where it swiftly became evident the lecturer followed a particular brand of left-wing thought. If anyone expressed a conflicting view, he’d sneer, and sarcastically demolish the student in front of the whole class. I barely spoke and learned little. I did not do well in the essay for that class, partly because I was inexperienced, but also because I didn’t adhere to his views.

He was the exception, not the rule, but the stereotype embodied by that lecturer has put all our universities at risk, with the federal Coalition government clearly reluctant to help universities out of the financial difficulty brought about by COVID-19.

Universities are struggling in light of COVID-19.Credit: Louise Kennerley

I want my students to learn to think for themselves: this is what “critical thinking” means. I’m happy for them to disagree with me on every point, as long as they provide reasoning and evidence for their views. Most academics are like me, but some disciplines must beware of being taken over by people like my old lecturer. Intolerance of different viewpoints is the opposite of critical thinking, regardless of the politics involved.

I have a wide circle of friends, of various political stripes. When I asked those on the right of politics what they thought of academia, they did not hold back: ‘intolerant ideologues’, they declared, ‘unscientific nonsense’, ‘biased’, ‘engaged in elite overproduction’.

“Universities should be razed to the ground, apart from practical subjects,” one friend said. “[Right wingers] see academics as people who don’t know how to behave in public, who are innumerate, who whine, and who think the world owes them a living.”

This anecdotal evidence of a negative view of the sector is backed up by hard data, at least in the United States context. A Pew Research Survey indicated that in the US, right wing voters are disenchanted with tertiary education. Republican voters are less likely to be college-educated than Democratic voters but a significant proportion of validated college-educated voters voted for Trump in 2016 (36 per cent). It’s not clever for any major institution, particularly a publicly funded one to alienate half the electorate.

In my view, the government is using COVID-19 as a pretext to kill universities. This is not because academics encourage critical thinking. We’ve become defined by the minority who don’t. Unfortunately, “academic is impartial, accessible and pleasant” isn’t a newsworthy headline.

I fear for the future of knowledge, higher education, and our society. We need to hope the whole class isn’t punished because of the actions of one or two students.

Katy Barnett is a professor at Melbourne Law School, and a member of Heterodox Academy. The views expressed here are her own.