Mike Grimshaw: Critic and Conscience - What should the universities offer – and expect?

Going through a tidy-up (and that’s an aspirational phrase) of my physical papers and files recently, I came across an article I had written for the NBR back in March 2003 on the issues of what is meant by universities and academics being ‘critic and conscience of society.’ That it was written for the NBR may automatically discredit it for some readers, but it was written in response to a column by James Allan, the noted law professor then teaching at Otago University and who now teaches at the University of Queensland – and continues to be a public intellectual.