Not sexist! Not racist! Don’t tell Lot’s Wife!
Back in the 1980s, it was left-wing students who used to complain about lecturers expressing inappropriate political views. Due to an attack on him in the Monash student newspaper Lot’s Wife, my criminal law lecturer, the late Kumar Amarasekara, had to preface his often hilarious jokes with the above disclaimer.
As the SMH reported this morning, now it is the turn of Liberal students to complain about political bias. According to their ‘Education. Not Indoctrination.’ campaign they want (getting in on the fashionable language) ‘inclusive’ universities that ‘foster intellectual diversity’. Incidents of bias could include:
* a verbal opinion offered by a teacher or lecturer that is overtly political or ideological
* a method of teaching that is hostile to opposing views
* the use or presentation of one-sided course materials or textbooks
* the promotion of a particular political ideology by university authorities
Andrew Norton 