The report contains examples of things universities are doing to better serve their Indigenous students or give other students knowledge they may need when working with Indigenous people. All this is within the scope of what universities should be doing to educate their students and prepare them for their professional lives. Unfortunately, the report’s recommendations go well beyond necessary, reasonable or desirable initiatives to a much larger political agenda. Consider the first three recommendations in the section on teaching and learning (emphasis added):
Recommendation 1: Embed Indigenous knowledges and perspectives in all university curricula to provide students with the knowledge, skills and understandings which form the foundations of Indigenous cultural competency.
Recommendation 2: Include Indigenous cultural competency as a formal Graduate Attribute or Quality.
Recommendation 3: Incorporate Indigenous Australian knowledges and perspectives into programs according to a culturally competent pedagogical framework.
The ‘all’ in recommendation 1 is a step too far. There are no Indigenous ‘knowledges and perspectives’ on much of what is taught in universities, if by that we mean their traditional knowledge. If it means the ‘knowledges and perspectives’ of modern Indigenous background people, then it is hard to see why these deserve a place in the curriculum (even if academics perhaps need to know what some of their Indigenous students might believe). Nobody has any special insight just because of their ethnic background. At least in theory, the modern university rejects any such claim to authority. Knowledge and theories have to stand on their own, regardless of who advocates them.
The over-reach makes the recommendation essentially political rather than academic. And that is something that I think should be resisted as a matter of principle, regardless of the cause being pursued. A point I made to the Australian was that if a precedent is set for curriculum politicisation, there will be a long queue of people hoping to insert their pet cause into what students learn. That’s exactly what has happened in school education, and exactly what I want to avoid in higher education.
At the moment, the Universities Australia report just provides recommendations. Though funding came from DEEWR, the unusually strong disclaimer suggests that the government was aware how far the report departed from academic norms (‘The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of or have the endorsement of DEEWR, or of any Minister, or indicate DEEWR’s commitment to a particular course of action.’) If it had been any other cause, I expect it would have been howled down, instead of the Australian struggling to find anyone but me willing to go on the public record with criticism.
My fear is that with the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency we now have a mechanism for across-the-board curriculum politicisation. The current minister denies that he is a threat to academic freedom, and I believe him. But he has created the institution that other ministers may use.
Update 17/1: Greg Melleuish expresses similar concerns.