Mark Latham:
Universities have become the antithesis of freedom. They should lose Public
Funding
Newsletter published on August 2, 2018
(1) Mark Latham:
Universities have become the antithesis of freedom. They should lose Public
Funding
(2) No enthusiasm for
enthusiastic consent reforms
(3) La Trobe
University backflips on decision to ban Bettina Arndt’s “rape crisis”
talk
(4) How a monoversity
tried to shut up Bettina Arndt
(5) They Is Going Too
Far
(6) I’m transgender.
Please don’t normalise transgenderism
(1) Mark Latham:
Universities have become the antithesis of freedom. They should lose Public
Funding
{ Mark Latham was leader of Aust Labor Party some years ago.
Now he & the ALP are poles apart. Latham is Australia's Trump}
Latham’s law
Mark Latham
28 July 2018
9:00 AM
Before his death in July 1826, Thomas Jefferson wrote the
epitaph for his own gravestone and insisted it carry ‘not a word more’. It read:
‘Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American
Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and Father of the
University of Virginia.’ He could have listed much more. Third President of the
United States, Vice President, Secretary of State, Congressman, Virginian
Governor, writer, lawyer, scientist, architect – he filled the sweeping
categories of a universal man. Yet he wanted to be remembered as the author of
two statements of freedom and the founder of a university.
How incongruous it seems today: to link higher education to
the higher ideals of liberty. Universities have become the antithesis of
freedom. Their governance has become weak and self-serving, in the hands of
vice chancellors incapable of resisting the institutional takeover of the Left.
Campuses are now riddled with PC
restrictions on speech and academic inquiry. Students and staff are herded
into the identity groupings of race, gender and sexuality, losing the freedom of
individuality. Post-modernism has infiltrated every faculty, every discipline,
demanding the rewriting of history and
the recasting of our civilisation as the work of bigots and barbarians.
These things are true in Australia and comparable countries, including the
United States.
Two centuries later, would Jefferson still want such an
association, his life memorialised by the civic embarrassment of the modern
university? I doubt it. Higher education has deteriorated so badly, so
quickly we are now involved in a
civilisational struggle to bring it back into the mainstream of society.
This is critical work, requiring a new
approach to university funding and staffing. Institutions that abandon the
Australian values of freedom, pluralism and meritocracy can no longer expect to be funded by the
Australian taxpayer. To earn the gift of public money they need to serve the
public interest. The evidence suggests universities now serve themselves, having
been colonised by mutant strains of
left-wing activism.
How can the scale of the takeover be measured? Fortunately
there’s a ready reckoner: the essays published daily on the Conversation
website, billed by Australia’s university sector as ‘unlocking the knowledge of
researchers and academics to (solve) society’s biggest problems.’ I’ve read this
material for the first three weeks of July, a total of 122 items, reflecting the
priorities of the nation’s scholars.
What type of issues are they interested in? By far the
largest category is environmental advocacy, with 27 articles or one-quarter of
the total. This includes a couple of global warming gems. Academics have
discovered that ‘instant coffee has the smallest carbon footprint’ and ‘artists
can put us in touch with our feelings about climate change’. Mainly BS artists.
I was fascinated by the findings of a Melbourne University research fellow on
the ‘psychology of meat eating’. As a keen carnivore, apparently I’m suffering
from ‘unconscious bias’ against the ‘mental lives of animals’. It sure doesn’t
taste that way.
The other categories were predictable enough. There were seven essays on Aboriginal victimhood,
three on refugees and ten on foreign policy, mostly Trump Derangement
Syndrome. Left-feminism was also prominent, with ten items. My favourite was
an explanation of ‘Why couples sleep better in more gender equal societies.’ I
also found out how women have abortions because of ‘male violence’ and the way
in which companies need to manage ‘menopause in the workplace’.
A key goal of neo-Marxist politics is to interfere in the
nuclear family, to spread Safe Schools-style notions of gender fluidity.
Universities are taking this a step further, shadowing the decisions of parents
in how they raise their kids. One in nine of the Conversation essays were about
children. A special section has been developed on ‘evidence-based parenting’. Australian
academics have become obsessed with other people’s children – a creepy, new
dimension to university life.
The remaining essays focused on miscellaneous left-wing
themes, such as supporting the ABC, re-regulating the economy, increasing
education funding and legalising cannabis. None of them called for a cut to Big
Australia immigration. Only one of the 122 articles advocated micro-economic
reform as a way of lowering unemployment (via greater labour market
flexibility). The brave fellow who wrote it now has a job security matching my
tenure at Sky News.
The university system is a striking example of
Insider/Outsider politics. As taxpayers,
the Outsider majority of Australians are forced into funding the wacky,
self-indulgent research of an Insider minority. This is one of many ways in
which we have become a divided nation.
Last Saturday I was in the seat of Longman, north of
Brisbane, campaigning with the Liberal Democrats candidate Lloyd Russell. It’s a
microcosm of middle Australia. The voters there had three big priorities: cutting immigration, ending political
correctness and creating jobs. They are a world apart from the abstract
leftism of university interests. People in Longman lie awake at night worrying
about their family budget, while inner-city academics are paid to study the
sleeping habits of Mr and Mrs ‘Gender Inequality’.
We can’t continue as two Australias. People in the suburbs
and regions have real-life problems requiring serious solutions. If the university system is off on a
tangent, peddling irrelevant sludge, it should be defunded. Only by
returning to the mainstream can it be worthy of public support and public
money.
== follow Mark Latham on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RealMarkLatham
and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=mark%20latham%27s%20outsiders
(2) No enthusiasm for
enthusiastic consent reforms
Lorraine Finlay with Bettina Arndt
2 August 2018
7:41 AM
Like most people watching the I am that girl story on Four
Corners a few months ago I felt enormous sympathy for the woman in question,
Saxon Mullins. There is no doubt that the incident involving Luke Lazarus was
devastating for her, and that this was only aggravated by the lengthy trial
process that followed. It is easy to understand why the NSW Government wanted to
do something, with the NSW Law Reform Commission being asked to review sexual
consent laws to determine ‘if the law needs to be amended to protect victims
better’.
The problem here is that the something being considered may
actually make things worse, not better. A key issue being considered by this
review is whether NSW should introduce an ‘enthusiastic consent’ standard, also
known as ‘affirmative consent’ or ‘yes means yes’ laws. The Minister for the
Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Pru Goward, has suggested
that ‘this is where the law in NSW needs to go’, describing the standard as
requiring a person to ‘explicitly ask for permission to have sex. If it’s not an
enthusiastic yes, then it’s a no’.
This is a significant departure from the existing legal
standard in NSW, which defines consent as ‘freely and voluntarily’agreeing to
sexual intercourse. To obtain a criminal conviction for sexual assault in NSW it
is necessary for the prosecution to prove not only that there has been sexual
intercourse without the consent of the victim, but also that the accused knew
that the victim did not consent. If an accused has reasonable grounds for
believing that there was consent, the offence is not established. In their
submission to the NSW review, the Law Society of New South Wales opposed
amending the legal definition of consent, stating that the existing law ‘strikes
the right balance’.
The current legal standard focuses on establishing an absence
of consent, whereas an ‘enthusiastic consent’ standard inverts this by requiring
consent to be affirmatively established in order to avoid liability. There are
significant legal and practical problems with this approach, as I discussed
recently in a video interview with Bettina Arndt.
The key legal issue is that enthusiastic consent laws
undermine due process and the presumption of innocence. When we require consent
to be affirmatively established we are starting from the presumption that there
is no consent, meaning that all sexual intercourse is unlawful until proven
otherwise. This is contrary to the fundamental legal precept that individuals
are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty.
At a practical level, the problem is that these laws are
simply not workable. They fail to account for the way that humans interact in
reality, and they transform any sexual encounter into a potential legal
minefield. They also unacceptably blur
the line between a bad sexual experience and an unlawful one. A ‘yes means
yes’ standard makes it disturbingly easy for an individual to re-evaluate a
regretted sexual encounter and to
retrospectively withdraw consent, with some advocates in the USA going so
far as to claim that ‘regret equals rape’.
Indeed, there are cautionary tales aplenty when we look at
jurisdictions that have introduced this standard. Variations of ‘yes means yes’
laws have been adopted in a number of American States, including California and
New York, and by an estimated 1,400 higher education institutions across the
USA. There are countless examples of ‘yes means yes’ laws broadening the
definition of sexual assault in a way that sacrifices fairness and balance in the
attempt to support victims and secure convictions.
For example, Judge Carol McCoy found that the affirmative
consent standard imposed by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
‘improperly shifted the burden of proof and imposed an untenable standard upon
[the accused] to disprove the accusation that he forcibly assaulted [the
victim]’. These same types of concerns drove 28 members of the Harvard Law School
Faculty to publish an open letter opposing a new sexual harassment policy
introduced at Harvard University and was the reason for the American Law
Institute rejecting in 2016 an attempt to amend the Model Penal Code to impose
an affirmative consent standard.
The concerns that ‘yes means yes’ laws significantly broaden
the definition of sexual assault and may lead to miscarriages of justice are not
misplaced or far-fetched. Indeed, some advocates see this as the very purpose of
such laws. For example, American journalist Ezra Klein acknowledges that the
‘yes means yes’ law ‘creates an equilibrium where too much counts as sexual
assault’ but argues that ‘its overreach
is precisely its value’. He argues that to lower rates of sexual assault ‘men need to feel a cold spike of fear when
they begin a sexual encounter’ and that it is necessary for the law’s
success that young men are convicted of sexual assault in ‘genuinely ambiguous
situations’.
This is the absolute antithesis of what our justice system is
meant to be about. The most basic principle of our criminal law is the
presumption of innocence, resting on the idea that it is better that 100 guilty
men go free than one innocent man is convicted. The proposed enthusiastic
consent reforms in NSW undermine this fundamental standard and should be
rejected for this reason.
Lorraine Finlay is a Law Lecturer at Murdoch University,
lecturing in constitutional law and international human rights. She is also a
former President of the Liberal Women’s Council (WA).
(3) La Trobe
University backflips on decision to ban Bettina Arndt’s “rape crisis”
talk
TOM ELLIOTT
Aug 2, 2018
La Trobe University has backflipped on its decision to ban
psychologist Bettina Arndt from addressing a student Liberal Club event.
The well-known sex therapist was initially banned from giving
her talk ‘Is there a rape crisis on university campuses?’ by La Trobe
University.
“They eventually backed down,” Ms Arndt told Tom Elliott.
“We think we’ll put it off for a few weeks.
“They also said they might charge students extra for extra
security and we know what that means.”
The university
initially denied the club a room to hold the event on August 14 for about
100 people, with two administrators
allegedly telling Liberal Club members that Ms Arndt’s planned address did not align
with the university’s campaign against sexual violence.
La Trobe University have since provided 3AW with the
following statement:
La Trobe welcomes diversity of opinion and free speech. They
say no decision has been made about security yet but if there is security
required however like anyone, the organiser will have to cover that cost. The
services being offered to students are existing and are already funded by the
university.
(4) How a monoversity
tried to shut up Bettina Arndt
Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
August 2, 2018 9:18am
Our universities are really monoversities - enemies of intellectual diversity:
Administrators at Melbourne’s La Trobe University have done
an about-face on a decision to block sex therapist Bettina Arndt from addressing
a student Liberal Club event, but have told the club it will have to pay for
extra security...
La Trobe initially denied the club a room in which to hold
the event on August 14 for about 100 people, with two administrators allegedly
telling Liberal Club members that Ms Arndt’s planned address did not align with
the university’s campaign against sexual violence.
A sex therapist and psychologist, Ms Arndt was a critic of a
report compiled by the Human Rights Commission that alleged sexual harassment
was endemic to Australian campuses.
Her address — titled “Is there a rape crisis on university
campuses?” — will continue her argument that the commission’s report overstated the incidence of rape on campus
and actually showed “hardly any rape and only a lot of unwanted
staring”.
The university yesterday changed its position on the talk,
with administrators contacting club organisers to confirm the event could go
ahead so long as the club was prepared to pay the costs of any extra security it
might have to put on for the occasion...
The club is yet to find out how much the extra security will
cost
The university has said it will cover the cost of any counselling required if students who attend
the talk are upset by its content.
So pathetic.
First the universities promote a wildly dodgy survey that exaggerates the risk
of the sexual assault on campuses, and one then tries to block a speaker who calls
them out.
Just one more example of how our universities are the enemies
of the reason and free inquiry they are funded to advance.
(5) They Is Going Too
Far
Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
August 2, 2018 9:03am
What business is of the Victorian Government or their public
servants to tell people what to say?:
THE state government is behind a campaign to replace “he” and “her” with the
gender-neutral pronouns “they” and “them”...
The centrepiece of the campaign is a professionally shot
mini-documentary uploaded to YouTube featuring staff from multiple state
government departments advocating the use of gender-neutral terms “they” and
“them”.
The documentary is titled as produced “on behalf of Victorian
Department of Health and Human Services Pride Network”...
The DHHS video features public servants from departments
including education, justice, health, and premier and Cabinet discussing gender
identity and language...
A Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman said:
“The Pride Network did not receive
government or departmental funding for this event or the associated video,
and it was not compulsory for staff to attend”.
It is understood the video was produced and edited by a Pride
Network member on her own equipment, and filmed in a state government office in
Melbourne.
If the tiny, tiny proportion of people who seriously don't
like their pronoun want their colleagues to choose another, let them say so. No
problem.
To make the millions of others walk on linguistic eggshells seems an
overreaction - and one that gratifies bullies.
(6) I’m transgender.
Please don’t normalise transgenderism
Libby DownUnder
20 November 2017
7:34 AM
We don’t normalise having cancer and we don’t normalise
medical conditions, yet society is normalising transgenderism, which trivialises
my grief and pain. My earliest memory of sensing that I might be different to
the other kids was as a four-year old boy trying on a white frilly girl’s dress.
It felt comfortable, but I didn’t give it further thought after that. At that
stage in life I didn’t exhibit behaviour and thought typical of acute early
onset gender dysphoria, such as using a nail clipper to try to cut off my penis.
I was just a typical boy who had an inkling that he might’ve been different to
the other boys.
I started to play around in my mother’s wardrobe during
primary school, and it wasn’t until I was 11 did I start to feel I was in the
wrong body, and recognise that I was experiencing gender dysphoria. My dysphoria grew
naturally, and started to eat up a lot of my time on a daily basis. Despite
frequent contact with healthcare professionals during my teenage years, none
were willing or able to support my parents in understanding my life
debilitation, which didn’t start to alleviate until I started my male-to-female transition
circa 2010.
Fast forward to 2017, the normalisation of transgenderism in
Western society has been a swing too far to the left. In the early years of my
transition, I felt justified in believing this would be good for society. It was
an immature Roz Ward-style response to the perceived injustice I experienced as
a teenager. But I’ve come to realise that I was wrong – as a trans woman I
should’ve known better about the dangers of normalising transgenderism in
society.
Transgender people
should be vetted thoroughly before receiving medical treatment, and should be
rare. Once upon a time it was rare, and generally stigmatised by society.
While I’m grateful that the stigma has significantly diminished in recent years,
I am disturbed by the social normalisation and demedicalisation of
transgenderism. Despite receiving the best ongoing medical treatment for gender
dysphoria I could ever ask for, my dysphoria still causes me grief and pain. But
that’s my grief and pain to carry. And it’s the responsibility of adults to deal
with the struggles of life.
Sadly, some adults in positions of power think it’s okay to
send the message to children that they can be whatever gender they want to be.
The push to normalise transgenderism in schools breaks my heart. My grief and
pain has turned into a political football, known as radical gender theory, for
children to play with under the guise of Safe Schools and similar programs.
Transgenderism should stick to the doctor’s room, not the classroom.
With the exception of a tiny minority of genuine cases of
gender dysphoria, children are not capable of experiencing gender dysphoria. I
myself a genuine case of gender dysphoria, did not experience serious gender
dysphoria until my teenage years. Known research on this matter show that many
children who think they have gender dysphoria will grow out of it. We should be
thankful that children can grow out of the grief and pain that I still
experience. After all, children are impressionable.
The life that awaits a transgender child is a life of grief
and pain, that is, if the child does genuinely have gender dysphoria. Indeed,
it’s much more difficult these days to tell if a child does have real gender
dysphoria or not. The rise of “rapid
onset gender dysphoria”, or ROGD, is the result of the normalisation of
transgenderism.
ROGD, as opposed to traditional early onset gender dysphoria,
which is what I have, has only appeared in the past decade in Western society,
in which teenagers suddenly identify as transgender, without any typical
childhood history of gender dysphoria. This out-of-the-blue phenomenon is cause
for concern, and will only continue to pervade society as we continue to
normalise transgenderism. This is all more the reason why Safe Schools and the
like have to go.
Whatever happened to the healthcare professional’s moral
obligation to “first, do no harm”? Medical treatment should always be the last
resort for treating children with alleged gender dysphoria, and I don’t take
that position comfortably. As it turns out, I, a 20-something-year-old trans
woman, genuinely have gender dysphoria since childhood, but it didn’t even
become serious until my teenage years.
My message to the adults who support Safe Schools: just
because we may have had it hard growing up and beyond, it doesn’t make it right
to pass the pain and grief onto our children. Our children are impressionable.
They’re vulnerable. Why would we want them to go through with it early in life
when none of that’s necessary? Let kids be kids, and as adults, we have a moral
responsibility to ensure that.
Libby DownUnder is an Australian video blogger on social
media (mainly Facebook). She’s in her late twenties, and she transitioned to the
female gender in her early twenties.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.