Sydney University staff criticise ‘regressive’ Ramsay agenda

Sydney Uni staff condemn a “regressive ideological agenda” based on the “inferiority of non-Western traditions’’.

University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence. Picture: James Croucher

The battle over Sydney Univer­sity’s proposed Western civilisation course has intensified amid criticism from staff that it amounts to a “regressive ideological agenda predicated on the inferiority of non-Western cultural traditions”, ahead of a meeting of “concerned” academics called for tomorrow.

On Monday, staff were invited by email to tomorrow’s meeting, which has been called to discuss the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation’s proposed liberal arts-style course — a style of course common in many American universities — focused on “great books” and “masterpieces” of the Western tradition.

The staff meeting will be held in advance of plans by the University of Sydney’s vice-chancellor, Michael Spence, to release a draft memorandum of understanding between Sydney and Ramsay at a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences board.

Monday’s emailed invitation to humanities and social sciences ­academics stressed the importance of safeguarding “our faculty’s commitment to diversity, pluralism and multiculturalism, and make a collective statement, as researchers and teachers in the humanities and social sciences, that European cultural supremacy has no place in our institution”.

The email said the Ramsay Centre’s “regressive” ideological agenda was a reality “regardless of the details of its eventual curriculum or the good intentions of those teaching it or any colleagues who might currently support it”.

“The Ramsay Centre will interrupt, by ideological means, the international standards of independent scholarship … The academic and reputational damage to the university and its members will be consequential,” it said.

The proposed Ramsay course, which is still in development, comes with a $64 million grant from the bequest of businessman Paul Ramsay, who died in 2014. The Ramsay proposal was rejected by the Australian National University, citing concerns about academic autonomy, this year.

Dr Spence has reassured staff and students that the Ramsay Centre, chaired by former prime minister John Howard, would have “zero” input into any course of study. The proposal would need to be approved by the university’s academic board.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Dr Spence strongly rejected claims Sydney was considering an ideologically loaded course. Sydney would not introduce “a kind of boot camp for preparing brainwashed neo-cons,” he said.

Nicholas Riemer, one of the most outspoken critics of the Ramsay proposal on campus, told The Australian the “actual curriculum of the course has never been the point of greatest concern to the Ramsay board”, which includes Tony Abbott among its eight members.

“Clearly, what’s of interest to Abbott and Howard is the intellectual legitimation that association with a respectable university like Sydney would bring to their political agenda. If a deal with Sydney was made, Ramsay would trade on it to give academic respectability to positions that otherwise wouldn’t be given the time of day.

“How soon before the Ramsay Centre hosted someone like Keith Windschuttle, who would never be taken seriously at the university, to speak on their premises?”

The Ramsay Centre’s board of directors includes Joe de Bruyn, national president of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association and a former member of the ALP’s national executive, and Elizabeth Stone, principal of Sydney’s Queenwood School for Girls.

The chief executive of the Ramsay Centre, Simon Haines, yesterday reiterated his commitment to university autonomy.

Dr Spence’s office declined to comment on the allegations.