As part of their campaign to ‘Make Education Fair’, the Young Tories have compiled a list of academics they claim are guilty of leftist bias. This is in addition to assembling a range of materials intended to establish that University campuses — just as their parents warned them — are Communist-inspired hotbeds of unAustralianism: radical feminism, animal rights, gay rights, trade unionism, socialism, and other, equally new-fangled concepts. In doing so, the Young Tories are following in the footsteps of the right on campuses in the United States, and the program championed by neo-conservative polemicist Daniel Pipes: Campus Watch.
The intent of this page is to showcase a small sample of the academics in Australia, to highlight the prevalence of radical views, the lack of diversity and the use of the education as an ideological weapon. The purpose of this list is to alert students to what they may expect from these academics should they take their courses.
In categories below, we have listed academics who fall into one of several categories
1) Academics in education faculties who believe that education is a legitimate tool for radical activism and social engineering
2) Academics who are members of leftist associations
3) Academics who are activists for left or far left causes, and hold views well outside the mainstreamA common element in academia is the continual obsession with race and minority cultures. This can be seen in the prevalence of ‘Black Studies’ or ‘Indigenous Studies’ centres on campus. Apparently, the only race that can be examined critically is the white race.
Thinkers as well as doers, the Young Tories provide the following analysis of how it is that the Red disease that eats away / all your fortunes day by day, came to exercise political hegemony over Australian Universities:
If you’ve ever wondered why so many academics are militantly left wing, perhaps a little history lesson is in order. Early last century, an Italian communist by the name of Antonio Gramsci theorised that for Socialism to be victorious, it would take what he called a ‘long march through the institutions’ – the family, churches, media, civic organisations and universities must be captured, radically transformed and subverted for the Marxist cause. While academics are entitled to their own political views, many of them are unashamed activists for political and ideological causes, such as radical feminism, animal rights and gay rights.
In this instance, the Young Tories are also taking their cues from the radical right in the US, as found, for example, in the writings of Linda Kimball: ‘Marxist Subversion and Perversion of America’s Youth’ (2006) and ‘Cultural Marxism’, American Thinker, February 15, 2007. The same thesis has been outlined by Bill Lind (‘The Origins of Political Correctness: An Accuracy in Academia Address’, 2000), and has preoccupied much of the ‘neo-conservative’, ‘paleo-conservative’ and radical right for several decades now. The subject is discussed at some length in ‘Reframing the Enemy’ by Bill Berkowitz (Intelligence Report, Summer 2003): “‘Cultural Marxism,’ a conspiracy theory with an anti-Semitic twist, is being pushed by much of the American right”.
Television commentator Pat Buchanan says it is being used to “de-Christianize” America. Washington heavyweight William Lind claims it is turning U.S. college campuses into “ivy-covered North Koreas.” Retired naval commander Gerald Atkinson fears it has invaded the nation’s military academies. Immigration activist John Vinson suggests it aims “to distort and destroy” our country.
“Cultural Marxism,” described as a conspiratorial attempt to wreck American culture and morality, is the newest intellectual bugaboo on the radical right. Surprisingly, there are signs that this bizarre theory is catching on in the mainstream.
The phrase refers to a kind of “political correctness” on steroids — a covert assault on the American way of life that allegedly has been developed by the left over the course of the last 70 years. Those who are pushing the “cultural Marxism” scenario aren’t merely poking fun at the PC excesses of the “People’s Republic of Berkeley,” or the couple of American cities whose leaders renamed manholes “person-holes” in a bid to root out sexist thought.
Right-wing ideologues, racists and other extremists have jazzed up political correctness and repackaged it — in its most virulent form, as an anti-Semitic theory that identifies Jews in general and several Jewish intellectuals in particular as nefarious, communistic destroyers. These supposed originators of “cultural Marxism” are seen as conspiratorial plotters intent on making Americans feel guilty and thus subverting their Christian culture.
In a nutshell, the theory posits that a tiny group of Jewish philosophers who fled Germany in the 1930s and set up shop at Columbia University in New York City devised an unorthodox form of “Marxism” that took aim at American society’s culture, rather than its economic system.
The theory holds that these self-interested Jews — the so-called “Frankfurt School” of philosophers — planned to try to convince mainstream Americans that white ethnic pride is bad, that sexual liberation is good, and that supposedly traditional American values — Christianity, “family values,” and so on — are reactionary and bigoted. With their core values thus subverted, the theory goes, Americans would be quick to sign on to the ideas of the far left.
The very term, “cultural Marxism,” is clearly intended to conjure up xenophobic anxieties. But can a theory like this, built on the words of long-dead intellectuals who have little discernible relevance to normal Americans’ lives, really fly? As bizarre as it might sound, there is some evidence that it may. Certainly, those who are pushing the theory seem to believe that it is an important one.
“Political correctness looms over American society like a colossus,” William Lind, a principal of far-right political strategist Paul Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation (see group description, in Into the Mainstream) and a key popularizer of the idea of cultural Marxism, warned in a 1998 speech. “It has taken over both political parties and is enforced by many laws and government regulations. It almost totally controls the most powerful element in our culture, the entertainment industry. It dominates both public and higher education. … It has even captured the clergy in many Christian churches.”
The Young Tories’ campaign was launched late last year by the Liberal Party of NSW Division Inc, and has born fruit in the shape of a Parliamentary lemon: the Senate Inquiry into Academic Freedom, headed by lifetime Tory party hack Mitch Fifield. Last week, President of the Australian Young Liberals (Young Liberal Movement of Australia) Noel McCoy, presented the views of the campaign at a public hearing.
- Ignore Senate’s ‘witch-hunt’, academics told: “The New South Wales Greens say an inquiry into ideological, cultural or political prejudice in schools and universities is a witch-hunt…” ABC, October 8, 2008
Academics rally against Young Liberal ‘witch-hunt’, Josephine Tovey, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 10, 2008
‘Activist’ academics black list under fire, Matthew Knott, The Australian, October 20, 2008: “ACADEMICS named as militant left-wing ideologues in a black list tabled in federal parliament claim they are victims of a Young Liberals “witch-hunt”…”
The Young Tories are not exactly strangers when it comes to the subject of controversies surrounding ‘radical feminism’, ‘gay rights’ or racism: At the 2007 Federal Young Liberal Convention “…the Young Liberals likened Aboriginal culture to rubbish and said 40,000 years of Aboriginal history could be ‘taught in one lesson'”. Two years ago, a small mob of rabid Tories chanting “We’re racist, we’re sexist, we’re homophobic” were featured on national television. More recently, in Queensland:
- 1) Joshua Young, the University of Queensland student union president, allegedly made [questionable] comments on his MySpace social networking page. According to a copy of the page, Mr Young’s blurb about himself described going to drunken parties and “yelling at confused Asian students”. Mr Young, who has been a prominent Young Liberal, declined to comment at length until he consulted a solicitor, but dismissed the issue as “a political game someone is playing”.
2) University of Queensland (UQ) women’s collective members discovered racist, sexist and homophobic messages covering the Women’s Room on the morning of September 17. The messages, scrawled over the wall and posters, included: “I hate queers, Asians, Negroes… and women”; “I like cock” and “I love the patriarchy”.
3) [Joshua Young:] “As far as I am concerned, so long as the language used is not unlawful and no property was damaged, then the incident is a an example of the cut and thrust of student debate and politics. In the interests of keeping the peace though, I have asked for the offending graffiti to be removed.”
