ANU has been Islamised, claims Jewish lobby group

A prominent Jewish lobby group has accused the Australian National University of having been “Islamised’’.

Australian Jewish Association president David Adler.

A prominent Jewish lobby group has accused the Australian ­National University of having been “Islamised”, claiming its ­acceptance of foreign funding for a Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies was inconsistent with its reasoning for scrapping plans for a course in Western civilisation.

Australian Jewish Association president David Adler said the ANU had questions to answer over its decision to withdraw from negotiations with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation for a bachelor degree and accompanying scholarship program that was due to start next year.

Dr Adler, a former deputy medical secretary of the Australian Medical Association, echoed the sentiments of various politicians who have accused the university of double standards following the revelation that its Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies had accepted millions of dollars in donations from the United Arab Emirates and the Iranian and Turkish governments.

ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt has said the Ramsay Centre deal posed a risk to the institution’s academic autonomy.

“We have been quite blunt in raising the question of whether ANU has been Islamised,” Dr Adler told The Australian. “We have seen Islamic countries invest in university education around the world very substantially and we know that ANU has a program of Arabic and Islamic studies and received millions in funding from Arab and Islamic countries.

“There’s a fundamental question that needs to be answered here: why can ANU resolve their issues of academic autonomy in some areas of study but not when it comes to Western civilisation? There’s an inconsistency there.”

Professor Schmidt last week ­defended the university’s “globally renowned” Centre for Arab and ­Islamic Studies, pointing out that “all its activities, including appointments, have been under the exclusive control of the university”.

However, questions about the centre’s agenda were first raised a decade ago in a Senate inquiry into academic freedom.

Established as the Centre for Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies in the early 1990s, it changed its name to the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies about 1999. The following year, the university disclosed in its annual report a $2.5 million donation from the Al-Maktoum Foundation, of the United Arab Emirates, “to ­advance the studies of Arab and ­Islamic culture and language at ANU”.

The 2008 Senate inquiry ­received submissions from the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, all highlighting concerns that the centre had changed its focus after striking a funding deal with the UAE.

“Arguably this changed the focus of the centre from all Middle Eastern peoples and societies to only the dominant religious and ethnic groups in the region, Arabs and Muslims, shifting academic concentration away from the many regional minorities — not only Jews and Christians,” said the AIJAC submission.

“This is arguably in keeping with the worldview of the UAE government and dominant elite, which very much sees the past and future of the Middle East through the prism of its Arab and Muslim majorities.”

The ANU did not respond to questions.