Censoring unis ‘will lose best students’ researcher warns

EXCLUSIVE | Warning issued for universities that fail to defend free speech against an activist campus culture.

Research­er Matthew Lesh: “I’ve been phoned by parents and students asking which is the best university to go to for intellectual freedom,”.

Universities will lose reputation and talented students if they fail to defend free speech against an activist campus culture bent on shutting down debate, warns research­er Matthew Lesh.

“I’ve been phoned by parents and students asking which is the best university to go to for intellectual freedom,” said Mr Lesh, who audits campus freedom for the Institute of Public Affairs.

On Saturday, Education Minister Dan Tehan complained that universities were failing to take up the challenge of protecting free speech and had “their heads in the sand”.

Mr Tehan pointed to several attempts at censorship last year but agreed with former High Court chief justice Robert French, who reported on the issue in April and said Australia did not have the “crisis” seen in the US.

But Mr French said university rules and policies that could be turned against freedom of expressio­n were “rife” in Aust­ralia’s higher education sector.

And Mr Tehan said if the secto­r was on its way to a campus speech crisis, “we will end up a more divided and less harmonious Australia — and we should do everything we can to avoid that”.

Peak lobby group Universities Australia yesterday said the sector­ had put out a joint statement last year “reaffirming an endurin­g commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression on our campuses”.

UA chief executive Catriona Jackson said the French report was getting “careful consideration”. When that report was released­, UA warned against imposition­ of sector-wide rules aimed at “a problem that has not been demonstrated to exist”.

Mr Lesh welcomed the University of Western Australia going it alone with a new manifesto on free expression that tells students they must be open to a robust exchange of ideas that may clash with their beliefs and make them feel uncomfortable.

The new statement, announced by UWA vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater, represents the first serious response since the French report to incidents last year where campus activists tried to harass and silence controversial visiting speakers. Also last year, James Cook University dismissed­ physics professor Peter Ridd, a critic of climate science methodology. This was unlawful, a court held in April.

Mr Lesh said UWA’s competitors for the best students were far away but serious commitment to open inquiry and free speech could become a factor in Sydney and Melbourne, where each city had elite rival institutions.

“If one of the major east coast universities decided to stake itself out as being for intellectual freedom, they could almost certainly attract more students,” he said.

The new UWA document stresses learning through “openness to considering ideas that challenge existing belief struct­ures”, resisting “inappropriate constraints on the freedom to ­express (ideas)”, while noting that “vilification of marginalised groups” remains taboo.

“Beyond (such) constraints, freedom of expression is unfettered within our university, and so a multitude of ideas will be encountere­d here,” it says.

“This freedom to express ideas is constrained neither by their perceived capacity to elicit discomfort, nor by presuppositions concerning their veracity.”

Professor Freshwater, who left school at 15 and stepped up from a diploma in nursing to a degree and then a doctorate, told ABC radio last year about the value of “being stretched (and) put in an uncomfortable position” as you learn. She likened this to free speech exposing young students to difficult ideas and feedback they might not want to hear.

The British-born educator now chairs the elite Group of Eight universities, and has just been headhunted by Auckland University to become its first female vice-chancellor next March.