‘Crisis in law schools between practical and ideological’: former law dean

Macquarie University will review its law school practices following revelations law students faced the threat of failing an exam if they performed an ­under­whelming acknowledgment of country.

Constitutional law professor Greg Craven. Picture: Tertius Pickard/NewsWire

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Macquarie University’s vice-chancellor has ordered a review of its law school practices following revelations law students faced the threat of failing an exam if they performed an ­under­whelming ­acknowledgment of country.

Students have told The Australian this week that the university’s law course has become hijacked by a political ideology that is damaging to their education, with one saying they felt ­pressured to “express an opinion that I don’t truly believe in”.

In a statement late on Friday, vice-chancellor S. Bruce Dowton said: “I have asked the executive dean of the faculty of arts, professor Chris Dixon, and the dean of the Macquarie Law School, professor Lise Barry, to examine the issues raised recently by ­students in relation to teaching at the Macquarie Law School.

“This will include listening to staff and student views and benchmarking relevant practices against other major law schools in Australia.

“We take feedback from our students seriously. We want an inclusive and safe environment for our students at Macquarie University, where divergent views are respected. I have asked Professor Dixon and Professor Barry to report to me in three weeks. If changes need to be made, changes will be made.”

Macquarie’s action came after former law dean and constitutional law professor Greg Craven said there was a “crisis in law schools that should never exist”, with courses overlooking practical, “black letter law” skills for legal theory and ideology.

Professor Craven, also the former vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, said law students were graduating without the ability to draft a contract but could wax lyrical about contract theory, for example.

Other former law school deans, including Patrick Parkinson, said any lecturer creating environments that were not “in search of the truth” but rather awarded students for a particular viewpoint were “failing their students pedagogically” and abusing their power.

The Australian revealed this week that Macquarie law students, as well as facing the threat of failing a component of a key exam over performing a substandard acknowledgment of country, were required to perform a ­“privilege walk” in order to better understand status.

“Constitutional law used to be a very clear subject with very clear content … but it has increasingly turned into a subject on human rights. They’re skipping through black letter law straight into rights theory,” Emeritus Professor Craven said.

The result, he said, was that “if you went to a lawyer to draft a contract, the lawyer would be incapable of drafting it but could give a good lecture about the ­theory of contracts. It’s happened over the past 30 years … and has become extremely entrenched.”

Professor Craven said requiring students to make ideological statements such as a welcome to country was the “tip of the iceberg”. “If you’re a student and you write the wrong type of essay, you write a black letter law essay, you’re in serious trouble in terms of how you’re being marked,” he said. “The real problem is this monolithic legal academic culture that’s postmodernist and deconstructionist.”

Professor Craven said subjects had been “hollowed out … and ­replaced with ideology”.

Former law dean of the University of Queensland between 2018 and 2021, Professor Parkinson said while he didn’t necessarily think law courses were more ideologically driven than before, any lecturer who “imposes viewpoints on students and punishes them with low marks for not adhering to the political worldview” were engaging in “professional misconduct” and an “abuse of power”.

“It’s essential that any university lecturers aim to help students develop and foster their own opinions and the skills they need to teach is being able to develop cogent arguments backed up by the best evidence,” he said.

“Lecturers … insisting that only certain opinions are acceptable, fail their students pedagogically.”

Recently retired head of Notre Dame law school Michael Quinlan said the Notre Dame law ­focused on training for the profession and practical knowledge, with lecturers who are practising lawyers rather than academics.

“We talk to them about right and wrong, true and false … but don’t press upon them a view that such thing is right or wrong,” he said. “It’s important that universities and law schools are places which search for the truth.”