NewsOn CampusPoliticsTop Stories
Prepared to go to the barricades: ANU’s Gareth Evans urges uni leaders to fight for free speech
Former Labor heavyweight and now ANU chancellor Gareth Evans has used a speech to fellow university leaders to detail ANU’s much publicised struggles with the Ramsay Foundation and call for universities to be vigilant in remaining open to the principles of free speech.
Please login below to view content or subscribe now.
Are these university leaders really prepared to “go to the barricades” and prevent vicious leftist activists from shouting down and violently threatening invited speakers who do not subscribe to their world view???
It seems they only speak up when their own agenda is threatened and can only mutter “sorry we cannot guarantee their security” when vociferous leftist mobs successfully prevent a peaceful event not to their liking.
So in order to ‘defend the rights of free speech of conservative speakers’ you would drown out the free speech of ‘vicious leftist activists’? In order to protect ideas that might offend, you would drown out shouts that might offend?
So far, there has been no massive ‘leftist vicious violence’ on Australian campuses. There have been no student scuffles that would rival the political struggles of the 60’s. Most of the ‘leftist viciousness’ that would ‘demand extra security’ these days seems to consist of shouting only. Since when do words hurt peaceful conservatives?