Academic freedom in Australia

Critique of the Senate Inquiry into Academic Freedom. ...In Australia, the Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (SSCEEWR) conducted an Inquiry into Academic Freedom in the second half of 2008. The inquiry had been established in the dying days of the Coalition-controlled Senate in late June 2008. On 4 December the Inquiry released its report. A report of such an inquiry usually has the same title as the Inquiry itself. In a hint of its findings, this report bears the title ‘Allegations of academic bias in universities and schools’ (SSCEEWR 2008). The Inquiry was a shameful waste of parliamentary and public resources. Its report demonstrates that the way the Inquiry’s terms of reference were specified, and the nature of the ‘evidence’ presented to that Inquiry by its supporters, constituted an ideologically-driven attempt to undermine academic freedom, and an unsubstantiated and scurrilous attack on the professionalism of some university teachers...