Saturday, June 09, 2018

Sydney University academics reject Ramsay Centre

More than 100 academics have signed an open letter opposing the US Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation's involvement with Sydney University, saying the institution was not a "training institute for a future political cadre".

Sydney University is in talks over financial support for a degree in western civilisation from the centre, which would be funded as part of a $3 billion bequest by health care magnate Paul Ramsay. The UNSW is not in discussions with the centre.

The Australian National University last week pulled out of a deal with the centre that would have funded 10 academics, 30 scholarships and some capital investment because it was concerned about university autonomy.

On Friday, Sydney university academics said they were concerned about the same thing. Signatories to the letter ranged from emeritus professors to lecturers, and they came from departments such as linguistics, Chinese studies and economics.

  • "We are a university, not a training institute for a future political ‘cadre’," the letter read. "Decisions about how the cultural traditions of Europe are to be studied at university are for academics to make, not billionaires or former prime ministers.
  • "The Ramsay programme represents, quite simply, European supremacism writ large: it signals that the study of the European cultural tradition warrants better educational circumstances than that of others.
  • "The profoundly dangerous implications of this bias do not, we believe, need further comment."

Dr Nick Riemer, a linguistics expert in the English Department, said the academics' first concern was academic autonomy.

"The second part of it is it institutes this structural discrimination," he said. It says students that happen to be interested in the west are entitled to superior education resources than those interested in Aboriginal Australia, for example."

Dr Riemer said the signatories were not "just the usual suspects to the left - it's a wide range of staff. There are also people from the English department, people whose professional work is in studying stuff from European tradition."

In its statement, Sydney University said the Vice Chancellor, Michael Spence, had assured the academic board that the university would not do anything that threatened its integrity, but would make its own assessment of the opportunities and risks.

Under the agreement the centre had been discussing with the ANU, the degree would involve small classes of no more than six to eight students, the curriculum would be determined by two academics from the Ramsay Centre, and two from the ANU, and only students with an ATAR of 97 would have been accepted.

Many have criticised ANU's decision. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull weighed into the controversy this week, saying he was surprised. He said he would be asking the universiyt's vice-chancellor, Brian Schmidt, for a fuller account.

The NSW Education Minister, Rob Stokes, also spoke out, saying it seemed "insane" for a university to turn down funding for an area that traditionally struggles to attract it simply because it didn't like the world view behind it.

"We hope to appoint another Labor person to the board in the near future. The board have the matter under active consideration and hope to make an announcement soon."

The board includes former prime ministers John Howard (chair) and Tony Abbott, union heavyweight Joe de Bruyn, Queenwood principal Elizabeth Stone and Liberal MP Julian Leeser.

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