Free speech concern at universities isn't about protesters, academics warn

Moves to water down protections in staff agreements as well as "self-censorship" or interference from commercial funding partners are chief among concerns raised by academics and the university union.

Last year, when sex therapist Bettina Arndt took her "Fake Rape Crisis Campus Tour" to the University of Sydney, her talk triggered protests and then a government-commissioned review into concerns free speech was being shut down at Australian universities.

The review, by former High Court chief justice Robert French, found no evidence of a free speech crisis but did propose a new voluntary code to strengthen protections, which universities are now considering at the urging of Education Minister Dan Tehan.

Yet the National Tertiary Education Union says another policy doesn't go far enough to protect staff, warning of a creeping push to water down academic freedom in binding enterprise agreements.

In recent years, at least 10 universities, including the University of Melbourne and Victoria University, had moved to weaken protections or push them into non-binding policy, usually without success, the union said.

General secretary Matthew McGowan said staff were also aware of incidents of "political and funding interference" in universities as well as attempts to influence research and scholarship.

"The controversial people always get attention but the big concern for us is say if for example a big pharmaceutical company gives money to a university to fund research and then an academic is discouraged from looking into one of their [products], that's the sort of thing we're anxious about," Mr McGowan said.

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Tilman Ruff said he was aware of academics self-censoring both their research and their public comments in response to "institutional loyalties".

"I've always been supported to speak out," Professor Ruff said.

"But it's become a very difficult market [after government funding changes]. There's so much competition for research money and some very powerful companies are getting into bed with universities."

As Australia powers ahead with its biggest investment in defence since the second world war, Professor Ruff said the increasing military focus of research was in particular need of more oversight.

Both peak body Universities Australia and the Group of Eight have reaffirmed the sector's commitment to free speech and inquiry in recent days, noting universities already have more than a 100 relevant policies in place.

National president of the union Allison Barnes said that while she agreed cries of a free speech crisis were overblown, the only real protections for academics from more "insidious" pressures were enshrined in staff agreements not policy.

"Some of that [pressure] might not necessarily be doctoring research but about the sorts of questions that are investigated in the first place," Ms Barnes said.

Ms Barnes said closer connections between universities and industry was key to driving innovation.

"But we have to be mindful that in fostering good relationships we don't fall into the trap of privileging or censoring certain sorts of research," she said.

At the Australian National University, Jacqui Hoepner began researching academics whose work had been shut down or attacked after her own PHD thesis on the unproven "wind farm sickness" was hijacked by anti-wind campaigners.

"They blocked every attempt to interview people who claimed to have it," Dr Hoepner said.

"I couldn't do the research."

Instead, she spoke to academics across the world, many of whom had endured years of harassment and threats, or had faced demotion or dismissal from their universities.

Among them was Paul Fritjers, who made headlines in 2013 when his research into racism on Brisbane buses was pulled by the university following a complaint from the city's transport provider. Professor Frijters later quit after a demotion and a lengthy Fair Work dispute, saying "powerful people didn't like [his] research...and that put pressure on the university".

Dr Hoepner said pressure also played out along moral lines - with researchers steered away from investigating certain areas deemed to conflict with university values such as the use of hallucinogens to treat mental health disorders.

"The people I spoke to weren't on the fringes, they weren't Holocaust deniers," she said. "They were working in public health mostly, on medicine or obesity and sugar research.

"Even mechanisms within research can be used to silence academics if people keep blocking projects or throwing up hurdles before ethics committees. And PHD and research students aren't protected by an EBA clause."

Desiree Cai at the National Union of Students said the real crisis on campus was recent funding cuts to the sector, not free speech.

Mr Tehan said the government was continuing to invest in both universities and research.

"I urge any academic that has evidence of a university's commercial arrangements or other relationships compromising academic freedom to report it to TEQSA," the minister said.

One academic in Sydney, who asked not to be named, called for more transparency around the kinds of funding deals universities had with fossil fuels and the arms industry.

"I know people self-censor their work because of these things," she said.

John Fitzgerald of Swinburne University said another cause for concern was increasing collaboration between Australian universities and foreign powers such as China.

A number of academics had already been denounced on Chinese social media, Professor Fitzgerald said, and in 2017 an intimidating convoy of cars bearing the slogan "Anyone who offends China will be killed..." toured two Sydney universities.

Both the ANU and the University of Canberra have academic freedom clauses in their staff agreements, and the ANU has taken a a firm line in its defence in recent years.

In 2018, the university controversially pulled out of a multi-million dollar funding agreement with the John Howard-headed Ramsay Centre over concern the centre wanted to sit in on classes and retain veto power over a proposed degree in Western Civilisation.

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