In this article, Peter Ridd contextualises and disseminates the IPA’s research on Australian Universities.
The fight between President Donald Trump and Harvard University raises the question of how bad universities must be before governments should act. This question is even more important for Australian universities, which are largely funded by government. Where is the balance between an independent university system and the right of the government to control how our taxes are spent?
Trump has recently withdrawn the right of Harvard to host foreign students after previously suspending government funds for research. His administration cited Harvard’s racist and sexist hiring and enrolment policies (diversity, equity and inclusion), and rampant anti-Semitism.
But the list of university crimes is far longer than this, and Harvard is little worse than most Australian universities. Consider the following incomplete list of additional grievances.
Visa scamming using the lure of permanent residency to encourage overseas student enrolments; grossly misrepresenting the economic benefits of overseas students by exaggerating how much they spend while in Australia; rampant cheating even before the advent of AI; gross over-representation of academics of left-wing, or far-left, political persuasion; staggering inefficiency, with over half of university staff being administrators; engaging in kangaroo court disciplinary procedures against students who may fall short of woke ideals; accepting students with inadequate prerequisites, failing them, and putting them into debt with no degree.
The most important grievance – enforcing a ruthless woke ideology – is most dangerous in teacher education degrees. Students must survive up to five years of indoctrination. This means new schoolteachers either have an incredibly high threshold to pain, and can endure years of woke lectures, or are fully signed-up, far-left zealots. They go on to teach our children. Could anything be more damaging to society?
So far, aside from Trump, there has been no attempt to rectify the failing university system in the Anglosphere. There are a couple of things that can be done easily. The first is to take the crucial teacher education role away from universities and set up new teacher training institutions. Start again – outside the universities.
The second is more fundamental. The solution lies in the composition of the university councils, which state governments can influence. University councils are like the boards of directors of companies. In the end, it is these councils that are responsible for the woeful situation at universities.
Many universities are set up under specific Acts of a state parliament – especially the newer universities. For example, most Queensland universities fall under their own Act of parliament, which dictates how the council will be selected. The government has the ability to select many of those who sit on the councils, and could change the Act in order to stack the councils with people of an appropriate disposition.
A state government could experiment with reform by changing the councils of a couple of universities. I would suggest starting with James Cook University, my alma mater, in North Queensland.
This is an area where more than 75 per cent of people voted no to the racist voice, but we have a university that behaves as if it serves the inner city.
Let us have some true diversity – a university that has a different philosophical bent, driven by a board empowered to hold the senior management of the university to account.
So, who would be the chancellor, the head of the council? Traditionally, chancellors are usually pedestrian ex-politicians, judges or diplomats. But a North Queensland university, which is going to be different, needs a different sort of chancellor. Let us have some fun – why not Bob Katter? He is more in tune with North Queensland than most council members, and even ticks some diversity boxes. The only Lebanese-descended chancellor who owns a large gun.
And, being completely serious, why not invite the heads of QCoal and Bowen Coking Coal to join the council? To support the agricultural industries in the north, we could have the chair of one of the sugar-growing organisations. And to further help the mining industry upon which North Queensland relies, invite geologist and climate realist Ian Plimer.
Warren Mundine and Geoffrey Blainey could challenge the extreme ideology in the humanities departments. So would Noel Pearson, who hails from near Cooktown, and has annoyed more university education “experts” than anybody. The arguments in the council chamber about the pros and cons of the voice would finally put some genuine intellectual spark back into university life.
Perhaps some of this is a joke. But is there not a place for just one of the 30-odd universities in this country to pursue the interests of its region? Just one that partially reflects the views of a long-suffering sensible majority? Just one to break away from the sameness of the others?
And it can be done quite easily. Stack the university councils. That’s something Trump cannot do to Harvard.
