The Elephant, the Mouse, and the Dead Horse

Back in April, I reported on the launching of a Young Liberals campaign aimed at getting university and high school students to dob in allegedly biased left-wing academics and teachers to a Senate inquiry set up by the Libs while they still controlled the Senate (see my 8/4/08 post From Howardistas to Horowistas, and related posts If you go out on the campus today 1, 18/4/08 & 2, 23/4/08).

The elephant labored, but only to bring forth the proverbial mouse:-

"Universities are not controlled by left-wing academics hell-bent on brainwashing students, a Senate inquiry has found. The Howard government established the inquiry into allegations of academic bias a week before it lost control of the upper house earlier this year. Labor senators dominated the committee, and its final report states there is no evidence of bias in the nation's universities. 'The committee's finding is that in view of the relatively tiny number of submissions recieved, from the hundreds of thousands of students who are said to be affected, there can be no basis for arguing that universities are under the control of the Left', committee chairman Gavin Marshall wrote in the report. 'If there is a Left conspiracy to influence the direction of the nation's affairs and its social and economic priorities through the process of subverting a generation of undergraduates, this is not yet evident'. When tabling the report, the Labor senator from Victoria said the inquiry was a waste of time. The Labor members of the committee said they were puzzled students didn't complain about perceived bias to their universities, 'rather than to a Senate committee'. In the majority report, they asked whether a left-wing bias among academics would even pose a problem if it existed. 'The issue is whether this has any bearing on teaching and learning, or any effect on the intellectual development of students', the report says." (No Left bias at unis, say senators, The Australian, 5/12/08)

Liberal senators, of course, insisted on flogging a dead horse:-

"Liberal senator Mitch Fifield said although specific examples of deliberate bias appeared to be 'uncommon', real bias could be seen in the curriculum taught in many faculties. 'It ensures a monoculture', he told the Senate. The Coalition senators' minority report recommends a charter of academic freedoms be developed to protect students' right to religious and political expression." (ibid)

As did Miranda Devine in the Sydney Morning Herald of 4/12/08 (Monoculture is killing thought). "[T]he submissions - some anonymous," she wailed, "paint a chilling portrait of an often unconscious academic bias in schools and universities, and of students too intimidated to say or write what they think." One such "chilling" submission cited by Miranda came from Gideon Rozner, Melbourne University Liberal Club president. The Devine Miranda was predictably shtum on the campaign's Zionist provenance and agenda, but would it surprise you to to know that Rozner had written to The Australian Jewish News of 26/9/08 that his club "has a proud history of supporting Israel, often in opposition to hordes of anti-Zionist leftist activists"? Silly question.