Liberals Release Bias List
Newcastle Herald
Friday October 17, 2008
A UNIVERSITY of Newcastle lecturer has been named on a Young Liberals "blacklist" of academics accused of having left-wing bias.
Two lists of lecturers were published in submissions to a Senate inquiry into academic freedom in Sydney last week.University of Newcastle education lecturer Dr Tom Griffiths was named on a submission schedule by Young Liberals president Noel McCoy.He was among 12 lecturers in education faculties around Australia the submission said subscribed to the philosophy of education as a "tool of radical activism, political, social and economic change".It lists Dr Griffiths' book Radical Teachers for a New Society as evidence of bias along with a university biography describing his academic interests in "equity, social justice, and the potential contribution of education to building an alternative, more democratic, just and equitable world-system".Another submission from the Young Liberal's Make Education Fair campaign listed the feminist and cultural theorists Catharine Lumby and Eva Cox, journalism lecturers Wendy Bacon and Peter Manning, and academics who are members of the Socialist Alternative. Mr McCoy said the lists were compiled as part of an evidence-based approach to analysing academic bias."Ideological and political prejudice in schools and on campus is a reality," he told the inquiry.The submissions were labelled a witch-hunt by academics.University of Newcastle academic deputy vice-chancellor Professor Kevin McConkey said the university supported academic freedom."This includes the open expression of views within an academic's area of expertise and diverse opinion supported by theory and evidence," he said.
© 2008 Newcastle Herald