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”.
Read the article by Rebecca Urban in The Australian.