Apparently the Young Liberals have prompted a senate inquiry into "systematic left-wing bias at Australian universities and high schools", which they've naturally dubbed the "make education fair" campaign to make it sound less like a right-wing witch-hunt. Anyhoo... I picked it up from an SMH article which stuck out because two of the examples given were lecturers that I've had, Wendy Bacon and Peter Manning. No-one's arguing that the lecturers aren't left-wing -- although in the case of journalism lecturers it's to be particularly expected since most print journalists I've met are left-wing to some extent or another. I think this is actually useful considering that most press releases, company announcements and other news feeds from organisations tend to have a right-wing bias. I never noticed any bias in the teaching or marking of the classes -- Wendy had a habit of fairly left-wing off-hand comments, but in lots of other places I heard people making fairly radical right-wing comments without people jumping to accusations of systemic bias.
Interestingly, Peter Manning didn't make much of an impression on me because he had managed to convince Gerard Ryle to be a guest lecturer for the course of investigative journalism, giving up any intent of propagating his own views in favour of putting an extremely accomplished journalist in front of us.
The Young Liberals seem to think that lecturers and other educators should be prevented from having an opinion so that people are encouraged to have opinions, something that I don't seem to get -- I prefer lecturers to lead by example.
I really do think this whole campaign is hypocritical -- the Young Liberals say that people need to "think for themselves" and yet anyone who expresses an opinion contrary to their own is seen as attempting indoctrination or lacking the critical facilities to think for themselves. Out of the nine examples of "bias" I read on their site three were about the opinions of other class members, who apparently shouldn't be allowed to have opinions either. Quite a few claimed to be uncomfortable speaking in class or stating their views, but when females and foreigners complained of this a few years ago they were dismissed by the right-wing as being overly-sensitive and demanding special treatment. And now the Young Liberals are demanding the same thing? In the acronym of right-wing online commentators everywhere, HTFU.
By the way, I couldn't let this particular quote from one testimonial pass: "This is the fundamental failure of left wing thinking, in that whilst conservatives acknowledge opposing opinions and choose to disagree with them, the left live in a world where non-left opinions or facts simply do not exist." I wonder if they were laughing as they wrote this? Has this person seriously not read any conservative commentary? Because most of it is about denigrating any opposing opinions ... the US conservatives are experts but check out someone like Miranda Devine for a similar tactic.
Posted by : JEQP
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