University’s political ‘indoctrination’ slammed by former chancellor

Former Macquarie University chancellor Maurice Newman has called for institutions that focus on ‘indoctrination’ over substance to be stripped of public funding, warning that political activism has been increasingly ‘creeping’ onto campuses.

03/10/2017: Former stock broker and chairman of the ASX, Maurice Newman for story on the 30 year anniversary of the 1987 stock market crash. Photographed in Sydney on Tuesday. Hollie Adams/The Australian

Former Macquarie University chancellor Maurice Newman has called for institutions that focus on “indoctrination” over substance to be stripped of public funding, warning that political activism has been increasingly “creeping” into campuses.

Mr Newman – who was chancellor of Macquarie University between 2002 and 2008 – has criticised the institution he once led for allowing ideology to hijack the curriculum, following revelations law students had been made to perform “privilege walks”.

The businessman and conservative commentator said grading law students on the level of conviction in which they perform an acknowledgement of country was “fundamentally” not what university was meant to be focused on.

After The Australian revealed that students were being penalised for an underwhelming acknowledgment of country, Age and the Law course convener Holly Doel-Mackaway doubled down on the requirement.

The course also required students to take on personas such as a poor child or CEO and take steps if a scenario, such as “I eat three meals a day”, applied to them, to demonstrate the concept of privilege.

“Fundamentally, that is not what universities should be about,” Mr Newman said. “Universities should be about instruction, and whether or not people acknowledge the so-called traditional owners, is really, I would have thought, something for them as individuals, not something to be indoctrinated.”

Macquarie University. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Mr Newman – who was also a chairman of the ABC and on the board of the ASX – said some of the political indoctrination occurring at universities, including the antics of anti-Israel academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, were not activities that “taxpayers should be funding”.

Dr Abdel-Fattah – who once led a pro-Palestine “kids excursion” where children yelled “intifada” – had a $870,000 taxpayer-funded research grant ­suspended after she bragged about bending research rules.

“One of the solutions is to defund them,” Mr Newman said.

“If they’re not performing the role, then they shouldn’t be getting the money?

“I look at what’s going on in the United States, and I see (US President Donald) Trump is withdrawing funding for some of the universities.”

Mr Newman said grading students on the sincerity of their acknowledgement of country hindered their freedom of expression by forcing them to perform the proclamation even if it was “absolutely hollow”.

“It’s akin to indoctrination that you have to, in some ritualistic way, mouth the mantra which somebody else has set down for you in order for you to earn social credit points,” he said.

“We might as well be in communist China.”

Mr Newman said he had seen a “pattern” emerging in university leadership allowing ideology to take hold, pointing to the outbreak of pro-Palestine encampments across the nation’s campuses.

“We’ve seen pro-Palestinian activists invading classrooms and so on, and yet the authorities seem to do very little,” Mr Newman said.

“So clearly, if there is no response, it will encourage people to do more.

“But it’s not about learning, it is not about respect, it is not about open mindedness.

“It’s not about having a clear view on different points of view. It means that there is only one view.”