Make universities accountable for academic freedom, says review

Australian universities have been told to tighten up their academic freedom and free speech policies, after a review found their adoption of a government-endorsed “model code” had been patchy.

The review, by former Deakin University vice-chancellor Sally Walker, has produced 12 recommendations and “suggestions” to improve the code and universities’ alignment with it.

They include urging each university to adopt a “single overarching code or policy”. Universities would also be required to detail their efforts to protect free speech and academic freedom in their annual reports.

Professor Walker’s review was commissioned in August to track universities’ adoption of the model code, formulated last year by former chief justice Robert French. Education minister Dan Tehan hinted at consequences for institutions that failed to embrace it.

“Universities have until the end of the year to honour their commitment to align their policies with the French model code,” he said. “I strongly urge those universities that have not already done so to take action.”

Such comments could inflame perceptions that institutional autonomy is being compromised over a non-issue. Universities point to Mr French’s failure to find a “free speech crisis” on campuses as evidence that academic freedom is part of their “DNA”.

But critics say academic freedom is being muzzled by institutional polices that require academics and students to comply with vaguely expressed codes of conduct, and – perhaps more insidiously – by institutional cultures that discourage expression of unpopular views.

Professor Walker’s review found that 10 of the 33 universities that claimed to have implemented the French code had failed to do so in a convincing manner. Four had policies that were only partly aligned with the code, while another six were not aligned at all. Another eight universities were yet to implement the code.

The review identifies the University of Sydney and Victoria’s La Trobe and RMIT universities as “exemplar” adopters of the French code. The institutions whose policies do not align at all, according to Professor Walker, are Federation, James Cook and Monash universities, UNSW Sydney, the University of South Australia and the University of Technology Sydney.

The report says Charles Sturt, Murdoch and Swinburne universities are yet to implement the code at all, as are the universities of Canberra and New England and the Australian National University.

Professor Walker said university governing councils should be required to prepare “annual attestation” statements about freedom of speech and academic freedom, for publication in institutional annual reports. The statements must identify each university’s main policy or policies regarding freedom of speech and academic freedom, along with the governing body’s judgement about their compliance with the model code.

A small group of chancellors should be tasked to develop a “template” for these statements, the report says.

It says some universities constrain academic freedom to staff members’ areas of expertise, and urges them to discard such “limitations”.

Some policies also leave too much room for “administrative discretion”, particularly when academic freedom clashes with codes of conduct or policies around the use of university facilities, the report adds. In such cases, academic freedom must take precedence.

Nor can academic freedom or freedom of speech be constrained by requirements to behave “reasonably, professionally and in good faith”, the report says. “The policy or code must make it clear that failure to meet these expectations…will not attract any penalty or adverse action.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com