NSW Education Minister blasts unis for fostering ‘groupthink’

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes will hit out at “far-left groupthink” at universities which has “narrowed robust debate”

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes. Picture: AAP

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes will hit out at the impact of rising identity politics and “far-left groupthink” within universities, claiming they have created a ­“monoculture that has narrowed robust debate to the point of non-existence”.

In a speech to the Centre for ­Independent Studies in Sydney today, Mr Stokes will also raise concerns about the university sector’s increasing reliance on international student fees and the threat to its financial sustainability and academic independence.

Echoing recent concerns raised by leading chancellors about growing attacks on free speech, Mr Stokes says there is a concerted push to restrict intellectual debate — both among the student cohort and faculty staff — with universities increasingly expected to be a “safe space” that is “free from ideas that have the capacity to offend”.

“Confronting material used in lectures often now must include a trigger warning before being taught. Speakers with opinions perceived to be offensive are ‘no-platformed’.

“This proliferation of safe ­spaces, trigger warnings, and no-platforming sanitises the univer­sity experience. You should go to university to be confronted and to have your outlook challenged. Universities should not be ­spaces where you go to have your pre-­existing opinions validated by an echo chamber.”

Mr Stokes will single out anti-Israel sentiment on campuses, saying much of it is “straight-up prejudice”. Those of the Jewish faith, or supporters of Israel, are increasingly targeted by “self-righteous students and staff who use the thin veil of ‘political activism’ to disguise their naked anti-Semitism”.

“This anti-Semitism has reached a point where individuals whose areas of expertise have nothing at all to do with politics are being boycotted from appearing on campus simply because they are an Israeli Jew,” he will say.

Mr Stokes’s comments come after Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan recently proposed to the Group of Eight universities that measures to protect freedom of thought and expression should be considered, such as requiring student activists to pay for extra ­security costs. He expressed concerns that in the case of Sydney University, event organisers were being levied with the bill.

Mr Stokes will also raise concerns about universities’ increasing reliance on international students, noting that fee income from international students now surpasses that of domestic students — making up a quarter of all university revenue in NSW.

Compounding the issue, he will say, is universities have become massive, with multiple campuses, and are costly to operate.

“Our universities are sleep-walking into the dangerous fiscal trap of over-reliance on one income stream — where a sharp drop in international students would render many of them financially unviable,” he will say.

“Chancellors do an amazing job. I know our universities are among the finest in the world. We must confront the challenges I have spoken about head-on if they are to retain their competitive ­advantage in the 21st century.”