What’s happened to the University? - The Centre for Independent Studies

What’s happened to the University?

Trigger warnings, cultural appropriation and safe spaces. Who decided to bestow guardian status to Australian universities? And why should we let this proliferation of politically correct ideals become the norm, prescribing, censoring or outright banning texts, gagging speech and curbing the exchange of ideas?

“The radical transformation that universities are undergoing today is no less far-reaching than the upheavals that they experienced in the 1960s in the US and UK. Today, when almost 50 per cent of young people participate in higher education, what occurs in universities impacts directly on the whole of society.” — Frank Furedi

Although we haven’t experienced a transformation as radical as our counterparts in the US and UK, these notions of restricting free speech all in the name of not causing offence will grab hold and cripple our universities.

This is an engaging, informed and robust look at how we got here, where we are headed and what the alternative is to this new status quo.