A prominent Jewish lobby group has accused the Australian National University of having been “Islamised”, claiming its acceptance of foreign funding for a Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies was inconsistent with its reasoning for scrapping plans for a course in Western civilisation.
Australian Jewish Association president David Adler said the ANU had questions to answer over its decision to withdraw from negotiations with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation for a bachelor degree and accompanying scholarship program that was due to start next year.
Dr Adler, a former deputy medical secretary of the Australian Medical Association, echoed the sentiments of various politicians who have accused the university of double standards following the revelation that its Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies had accepted millions of dollars in donations from the United Arab Emirates and the Iranian and Turkish governments.
ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt has said the Ramsay Centre deal posed a risk to the institution’s academic autonomy.
“We have been quite blunt in raising the question of whether ANU has been Islamised,” Dr Adler told The Australian. “We have seen Islamic countries invest in university education around the world very substantially and we know that ANU has a program of Arabic and Islamic studies and received millions in funding from Arab and Islamic countries.
Read the article by Rebecca Urban in The Australian.