David Farrar: Grant Duncan on the change in universities

Grant Duncan writes:

What’s unusual lately, though, is to see university administrators taking public stands on contentious political events, shutting down or de-platforming certain people, and imposing particular political opinions as the “correct” opinions.

As an academic whose job it was to study, understand and talk about political ideas and policies from across the spectrum and through history – including ideas that I may have disapproved of – this trend felt wrong and oppressive to me. It felt that way to many students too – and not only the conservative ones. I know that because they told me so. And it’s not as if I was against diversification of the curriculum. On the contrary, I’ve found it exciting to study and write about different civilizations and their political traditions and philosophies. My books are proof of that.

What troubled me was the oppressive atmosphere – the opposite of how a university should be. This went as far as bullying and silencing of non-conforming thought, on one hand, and the uncritical acceptance of some research that seemed shoddy to me.

This is the first hand experience of someone who was an academic up until a couple of years ago.

So, a wider range of people attended universities, taught by a cohort of lecturers with predominantly left or even Marxist opinions.

I sometimes wonder what proportion of lecturers are Marxists.

Some academics who embraced demographic diversity decided that “being diverse” was a more important criterion for hiring and promotion than “being academically accomplished”. But they could not tolerate political diversity. To sensible folk outside the academy, this was patent nonsense. But many academics doubled down by imposing their left-wing ideas through compulsory “identity politics” and by blaming all ills on “neoliberalism”.

While I was always in favour of a more equitable society, I opposed the indoctrination, or the political project of trying to produce a new kind of graduate who’d go forth into the world and transform it in ways that would realise their lecturers’ fantasies.

I also sometimes wonder at what stage a centre-right Government might start to question the wisdom of spending $4 billion a year on tertiary education, if it is being used to indoctrinate students, rather than educate them.

Think of the opportunity cost. Imagine what you could achieve if half that $4 billion went on making early childhood education universal from age one?

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.