Ramsay Centre: ANU consulted Oxbridge, Yale, Berkeley

Vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt says the heads of top universities agreed with the ANU’s decision.

ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt: ‘When you’re stuck in the centre and you’re getting attacked on both flanks, it’s hard to ­survive’. Picture: Aaron Francis.

Australian National University vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt has revealed that his decision to reject the Ramsay Centre’s proposal for a course in Western civilisation was backed by the heads of four top world universities.

The Nobel prize winning professor said he had consulted the vice-chancellors of Cambridge and Oxford, as well as the leaders of Yale and Berkeley, about whether the ANU should agree to accept the course in the face of disagreements over curriculum control between the university and Ramsey Centre.

“I have talked to the vice-chancellor of Cambridge, of Oxford, of Yale and Berkeley, and ran through — and they agreed it was manifestly not appropriate for ANU to have done that, based on our understanding of this course,” Professor Schmidt said after delivering the 2018 John Monash Oration in Sydney on Monday.

Last week ANU chancellor Gareth Evans said in a speech to a university governance conference that the Ramsay Centre had showed a “very explicit unwillingness” to commit to the principle of academic freedom.

Professor Schmidt said on Monday that the proposal for the Western civilisation degree course was derailed by an “irreconcilable” difference of opinion.

“It became clear there was an emerging discord about the level of control that the centre wanted and the amount of control that the university was prepared to cede on this,” he said.

“We agreed to disagree and it was relatively amicable. That we somehow didn’t want to do Western civilisation … is not true.

“I would say we were both upset that we’d spent 12 months really working on this and it had fallen apart.”

He said that the “firestorm” that came after the ANU rejected the Ramsay proposal was a product of a world where “there is no middle ground any more”.

“The polarised world we have right now means that contemplating things based on evidence and thought and logic is being dwindled out at both ends,” Professor Schmidt said.

“There is a sense that the people who are getting crushed are the people in the middle who are just saying this is how we should think about this, and this is the evidence. You can get into trouble going either direction here … it worries me.”

Professor Schmidt also said he believed that freedom of speech was a highly potent issue on campus and the greatest risk he faced in carrying out his job.

“When I did my review last year for my employment, they were asking what’s your biggest risk — and I said it will be some sort of freedom-of-speech issue. I don’t know if it’s going to be on the Left or the Right, but I’m going to get caught in the middle … and that’s how I’m going to end up losing my job,” he said.

“There is no middle ground any more and it’s extraordinarily difficult. When you’re stuck in the centre and you’re getting attacked on both flanks, it’s hard to ­survive.”

Professor Schmidt said he believed that the freedom to speak on a university campus needed to be clearly defined because “universities are not public spaces”.

“My view is that if you’re invited in an academic context … that’s fine, I don’t mind, go for it and we’ll sponsor it,” he said.

“But you’re not allowed to just show up uninvited as an outsider and say ‘I need freedom of speech here’. No, it’s got to have an academic context. I think people miss that sometimes.”