Sydney Uni chief blasts Ramsay’s opponents, Left and Right

The University of Sydney vice-chancellor has hit out at critics as the university considers a proposal for a Western civilisation course.

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

University of Sydney vice-­chancellor Michael Spence has hit out at critics from the far Left and Right as the university develops a memorandum of understanding for negotiations with the Ramsay Centre to develop a Western civilisation course.

In an exclusive interview, Dr Spence said the proposed course was “not a kind of boot camp for preparing brainwashed neo-cons”.

The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, supported with an ­endowment from the late Paul Ramsay, is looking to fund US-style liberal arts and ­humanities courses at up to three Australian universities. It is prepared to fund academic positions and student scholarships at each university worth $8 million over eight years. On the centre’s website, an indicative curriculum — believed to be an amalgam of proposals put forward by several universities — begins with ancient Greek drama, epic and lyric poetry, and ends with great works of Western architecture and art.

The centre, chaired by John Howard and counting Tony Abbott among its eight-person board, has had trouble defending its claim to bipartisanship since its director, Kim Beazley, resigned in May to become Governor of Western Australia. A month later, ANU rejected Ramsay’s proposed course.

Negotiations with the University of Sydney have progressed to the stage of an MOU. “The memorandum won’t be a definitive ‘yes’,” Dr Spence told The Weekend ­Australian. “It will say, ‘If we are to enter into an agreement with Ramsay, these are the underlying principles.’ They are about protecting our academic freedom, but at the same time recognising Ramsay’s legitimate interests as funders of scholarships and academic positions at the university.”

Dr Spence spoke of his frustrations over the polarised nature of the Ramsay debate: “The far Left don’t want it to happen because they don’t want us to be associated in any way with people who have Tony Abbott and John Howard on their board. The far Right don’t want it to happen because they want to prove that Australian universities are all full of lunatics and the subject of ideological capture and are not places where there is a diversity of views.”

A critic of the proposal, linguist Nicholas Riemer, said: “Ramsay should be persona non grata on any campus that takes anti-­discrimination and multiculturalism seriously. Their name is so tainted that walking away is the only acceptable course of action.”

On Thursday, Dr Spence released a statement through university social media to flag the formation of a small group of senior academics to finesse the draft MOU before taking it to the relevant faculty and academic board, which has final say on new courses and their design. Dr Riemer posted that the draft MOU should be made public to allow wide input. Dr Spence responded that the “loudest voices” may dominate if the conversation was not “structured”.

The university’s branch of the National Tertiary Education Union unanimously called for withdrawal “from any further discussions” with Ramsay.

Ramsay Centre chief executive Simon Haines said it strongly supported “the principles of academic freedom and autonomy as a bastion of Western civilisation”.