Ideology skewing law course

A law degree needs to teach serious, complex content, not impose mind-bending indoctrination, as is the case at Macquarie University Law School. Students in LAWS5005, Age and the Law, as Janet Albrechtsen and Noah Yim reveal, will fail part of their degrees if they deliver an Acknowledgment of Country in an oral presentation with insufficient passion and sincerity. So much for intellectual freedom, and respecting the views of those Indigenous leaders and communities who believe such statements are overused and have lost their cultural significance.

It’s one thing for a student to get an “F”, or do poorly, if they do not know what the law is, or if they cannot identify the issues in a legal problem, as Albrechtsen writes. “But to fail or get bad marks in a legal subject for not uttering a form of political speech in the correct tone as mandated by a lecturer is an abuse of authority.” To gain a credit or better, students must present “a brief, well-written, culturally respectful Acknowledgment”. But students, most of whom will be working in a year or two, should be taught how, not what, to think.

No debate or questioning is tolerated. Taxpayers, who fund their studies, and the salaries of academics inflicting such group-think ideology on the next generation of professionals, deserve better value.