Dissident Dispatches

by Andrew Fraser

The most concerning interaction was during today’s tutorial in which we were considering Christology and soteriology. Drew kept turning the discussion to eschatology in order to reiterate his belief that Migliore’s book “whitewashes” the history of Israel. He is an extreme supersessionist: it seems that the supersession is achieved by the violent eradication of Israel. He frames this eschatologically. Drew believes that Israel is the “old creation” which must pass away for the establishment of the new creation (the church). He thinks that Migliore does not make enough of the fact that the “Jews killed Jesus” and had to pay for this by the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of “every person involved in sacrificial system”. He dates the establishment of the new creation as AD 70, when the “old creation” was purged. Israel does not factor in Drew’s eschatology, and its destruction seems necessary for his soteriology. He scoffed at contemporary attempts to understand Jesus in his Jewish context, instead arguing that Jewishness needs to pass away to make room for the new creation.

  These were not off-the-cuff remarks, but carefully thought out arguments. I was troubled not only by the extremism of this fringe eschatology, but that numerous other students were quite taken with his ideas and wanted to hear more about them. Drew seems quite keen to discuss this further in the week on eschatology, and other students seem to want to listen to him. I fear that his views may harm the theological formation of the other students.

  Complainant: Radhika (Rads) Sukumar (UTC student)

  This letter is to complain about a fellow student in a class I am enrolled in (THL111 Introduction to Christian Theology), Mr Andrew Fraser. I believe the views of Mr Fraser are inherently racially prejudiced and bigoted, and his open expression of these views is causing our class to become unpleasant in nature.

  In our first lecture in the subject (Thursday 3rd March 2011), during a conversation about the theologian Karl Barth and Adolf Hitler, Mr Fraser articulated a view which implied that he believed the Holocaust never occurred (or at least, was greatly exaggerated), and that Hitler himself was judged unfairly. In another instance, Mr Fraser said the word racism is “really just a code-word for whiteness”.

  I believe Mr Fraser’s views are insulting and highly offensive to many members of the class (a class of around sixteen, of which at least ten are of a non-Anglo-Saxon background). His rude and disrespectful expressions of these views repeatedly disrupt the lecture and upset the students. I believe Mr Fraser is simply trying to convince members of the class (and others) of the supposed integrity of his racist views.

  I call upon the University to remove Mr Fraser from the classes he is enrolled in at United Theological College.

  Complainant: United Theological College Student Association

  We are writing to you in your capacity as the Head of the School of Theology of Charles Sturt University. The United Theological College of CSU is made up of culturally and linguistically diverse student body. It has come to the attention of the UTC Student Association Executive that there are a number of students, particularly non-dominant cultural groups, who are currently feeling unsafe within their learning environment.

  Within the CSU Student Charter, it states that students can expect “to be treated with respect and tolerance and to pursue academic goals without fear or intimidation” and “a safe and healthy University environment”. As a part of ensuring that this takes place one of the expectations upon students is that they “behave in a manner that demonstrates respect and tolerance”. We understand this to include the right of students to be treated fairly and without intimidation based upon their ethnicity or gender, and the corresponding responsibility that all students will act and speak in a way that respects people drawn from a multiplicity of cultures, backgrounds, languages and ethnicities.

  We ask that the School of Theology ensures that students are able to pursue their studies without intimidation based on culture, ethnicity or gender.

  Before informing me of the complaint lodged by the University Ombudsman, Dr Moriarty directed another University official, Mr Lee Murrell, to investigate the complaint by interviewing those who had lodged formal written complaints. While carrying out that task at UTC (without my knowledge), Mr Murrell also interviewed my fellow-student Katalina Tahaafe-Williams who, besides asserting that I made “the classroom environment uncomfortable” complained that I had given her a paper I had written in THL111 on “Whiteness as a Problem in Theology” [see above].

  Otherwise, the report made by Mr Murrell to Dr Moriarty more or less reproduced the content of the formal written complaints. But Steve Wright made additional allegations not found in his written complaint. He suggested that I made at least two students “nervous”. One woman in particular was said to have had her learning experience harmed by my suggestion that “the reason the western church was in decline is because it has become effeminate”.137 Mr Wright also alleged that I had on one occasion behaved aggressively towards him “whilst waving [my] finger in his face”.

  On the other hand, I was pleased to learn that my lecturer in early church history had deliberately sought out Mr Murrell “to record his observations”. Mr Murrell quotes Professor Emilsen as follows:

  It is Mr Emilsen’s view that Mr Fraser is easily controlled in the lecture environment and that he remains calm and accepts direction. He notes that tensions arise in the classroom when other students engage with Mr Fraser and the manner in which they engage is pertinent. He gave the example that there are generally two students who engage with Mr Fraser, one of whom was a mature white male theologian and the other was Ms Tahaafe Williams. Mr Emilsen noted that while the male engaged in a calm manner, it was felt that Ms Tahaafe Williams sometimes escalated the tone of the discussions.

  It is Mr Emilsen’s view that Mr Fraser, when controlled by the lecturer, remained within the social norms of the lecture theatre.

  In the following article, written early in 2012, I describe my experience over the summer of 2011–2012 in defending myself against the complaints made by other staff members and two of my fellow-students.

  2: The Cult of the Other and the Decline of Academic Freedom in Australia

  Introduction

  Academic freedom in Australia is dying before our eyes; another sacrifice performed in the now holy name of the Other. In the universities as elsewhere, public criticism of privileged minorities must walk a shaky legal tightrope.

  Even the politically correct mainstream media can run afoul of the human rights industry by straying too far off the reservation. Only recently, neo-conservative journalist Andrew Bolt was successfully sued for articles scolding many “fair-skinned” people of predominantly European ancestry for accessing benefits intended for Australian Aborigines.

  Unfortunately, in a mass-mediated wasteland of intellectual cowardice and political conformity, Australian universities are not an oasis of dissent. If my experience as a teacher, scholar, and, more recently, a first year theology student is a reliable guide, academia is utterly hostile to free thought and frank discussion on race, ethnicity, and gender.

  This situation does not exist because the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act 1975 outlawed speech deemed to be “offensive” and “insulting” to a person because of his race, colour, ethnicity, or national origins. Academic freedom was given formal legal recognition in section 18D(b) of the Act which protected “anything said or done reasonably and in good faith…in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest.”

  But critical legal scholars have long known that there may be a vast gulf between “the law in the books” and “the law in action”. When I publicly criticized black African immigration into Australia in 2005, my employer, Macquarie University, quickly exploited the large loophole in section 18D. The Vice-Chancellor summarily suspended me from teaching, acting on the premise that remarks critical of black African immigration could not have been m
ade “reasonably and in good faith.”

  Deakin University soon followed suit by ordering the editor of the Deakin Law Review to pull my peer-reviewed article on “Rethinking the White Australia Policy” from the issue that was about to go to the printer.138 The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission provided legal cover for both universities by finding that my observations on African immigration were not made “reasonably and in good faith,” either as part of an academic debate or discussion “or any other genuine purpose in the public interest.”

  Since my retirement in 2006 I have researched and written a book entitled The WASP Question.139 My goal was to explain why white Anglo-Saxon Protestant political, academic, corporate, and legal elites in every country founded by their ancestors are so ready, willing, and able to aid and abet the toxic minorities determined to shut down criticism of mass Third World immigration.

  In the course of writing that book, the spiritual dimension of Anglo-Saxon history acquired an altogether unexpected significance for me. I began to wonder whether a Christian ethno-theology might help WASPs to recover from the ethno-pathology that I call “Anglo-Saxon Anglophobia.”

  Throughout my academic career, I was an agnostic on religion and identified mainly with the secular traditions of civic humanism.140 My research into the long course of English and American history led me to rediscover the Old Faith of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. I was very much struck by the fact that it was the early Christian Church — not the State — which created the English nation.

  Of course, I also knew that, in our own time, mainstream Christianity in general and the Anglican Church in particular works tirelessly to undermine the will of the Anglo-Saxon peoples to preserve their own homelands. To understand how the church came to play such a destructive role, it became clear that I would have to study Christian theology in a more systematic manner.

  Life in the Belly of the Beast

  Accordingly, in early 2011, I enrolled in the Bachelor of Theology course at United Theological College in a Sydney suburb close to my home. The College is formally affiliated to a public university, Charles Sturt University, but occupies land and buildings owned by the Uniting Church of Australia.

  Now the theology of the Uniting Church is notoriously liberal. But I hoped that as a mature student I would be able to engage in academic debates and discussions in a comparatively free and frank manner. I was not aware, however, that the College’s commitment to the political theology of multiculturalism is so powerful that the student body is now made up mainly of Pacific Islanders — especially Tongans — and Koreans, with an admixture of Indonesians and black Africans.

  Life as a student at UTC has taught me what it means to be a member of a (despised) ethnic minority. A few weeks into the first term, I attended the seminar on “Myths of Whiteness” which featured Dr Anthony Reddie as its headline speaker. Proudly describing himself as a native Yorkshireman, Dr Reddie is also a prominent “British” exponent of black theology.141

  He found a receptive, predominantly non-white, audience at UTC. The aim of the seminar, according to one organizer, Dr Stephen Burns, was to show that for centuries certain people who described themselves as “Whites” subjected Black people to racism, dehumanized them, and treated them as animals.

  Accordingly, the hundred or more people in attendance were treated to hours of anti-white rhetoric from Dr Reddie and the eight non-white respondents who commented on his presentations.

  When, finally, I had the opportunity to ask how “racism” can exist if, as Reddie claims, there is no such thing as “race,” a College lecturer, Dr Jione Havea, quickly appeared at my side. He placed a red dot prominently on my name tag, a stigmatic ritual intended to signal to all present that I no longer had permission to speak.

  “Anti-racism” was the watchword not just at the seminar but in the classroom as well. My open dissent from the relentlessly leftist spin of courses such as Introduction to Christian Theology and Introduction to Old Testament Studies very quickly aroused the ire of several lecturers. On 1 April 2011, four of them complained about my allegedly “racist,” “sexist,” “anti-Semitic,” and “supremacist” views to Professor Clive Pearson, then the Principal of UTC.

  Only in late June 2011 did the Principal inform me that he had received complaints about me from both staff and students. But it was not until mid-October that I learned the identity of the complainants or saw copies of the complaints.

  When I did read the complaints, I was amused (and a little flattered) to discover that one tutor was worried that “numerous other students were quite taken with [my] ideas and wanted to hear more about them.” He expressed “fear that [my] views may mar the theological formation of the other students.”

  To avert that danger, Dr Ben Myers, the lecturer in charge of the introductory theology course, segregated me from my tutorial group — together with the only other older Anglo-Saxon Protestant man. We were directed to meet privately with Dr Myers for the remainder of the semester.

  Only one student, Ms Radhika Sukumar, a woman of Tamil descent, actually lodged a formal written complaint against me. She was then an employee of the Uniting Church of Australia. In the first semester of 2011, she studied part-time, taking only one course, Introduction to Christian Theology. Her complaint was lodged with the College Principal on 4 April 2011, three days following the complaints filed by the academic Gang of Four.

  Not until 16 November 2011 did the University complete its “investigation,” formally finding me guilty on three counts of academic misconduct: I was said to have (a) demonstrated intolerance for female and ethnic students; and (b) interfered with the studies of female and ethnic students; and (c) distributed an essay containing material that was offensive to female and ethnic students.

  As a consequence, I was suspended from my studies for a period of one academic year. I appealed both the finding of misconduct on my part and the penalty to the Student General Misconduct Appeals Committee of the CSU Council. The Committee, composed of the Chancellor, Lawrence Willet AO, the Deputy Chancellor, Kathryn Pitkin, and the postgraduate representative, Dr Rowan O’Hagan, upheld both the finding of misconduct and the one-year suspension.

  My experience at Macquarie University, Deakin University, and now Charles Sturt University demonstrates that section 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act, 1975 has effectively been nullified.

  Charles Sturt University now asserts the power to impose a speech code in its classrooms which empowers female and ethnic students to short-circuit academic debates and discussions simply by claiming to be “offended” by “politically incorrect” ideas and arguments.

  But militant feminists and ethnic students with a chip on their shoulder are not solely or even mainly responsible for the collapse of academic freedom in Australian universities. They are merely “useful idiots” pressed into the service of a globalized system of higher education; their role is to identify and root out the few remaining pockets of dissent from the multicultural orthodoxy governing contemporary academic discourse.

  Other minority interests have an even more toxic influence on the corporate culture of Australian universities. Most obviously, “progressive” academics are keen to set their current ideological hegemony in stone. But top-heavy university administrations (staffed largely by deracinated, other-directed WASPs) are no less desperate to maximize the revenue generated by the orderly throughput of undergraduate and postgraduate clients in an increasingly competitive and ostentatiously cosmopolitan academic marketplace.

  Can Australian Universities Be Forced to Be Free?

  The situation is not utterly hopeless however. It is just barely possible that the law in the books may yet force universities to be free. My case does seem to offer some hope that the very expensive process of judicial review might be invoked to reverse the university’s decision.

  I believe that my case can be distinguished easily from Eatock v Bolt. Andrew Bolt’s articles were not held to be
public comments made “reasonably and in good faith.” The judge characterized his language as so insulting and provocative, sarcastic and mocking, as to be unreasonable. Therefore, the judge found, Bolt was not entitled to shelter behind section 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act, 1975.

  Such reasoning cannot be dismissed out of hand. Significantly, Bolt’s employer, News Ltd, has not appealed the decision.

  Bolt’s articles named many of the so-called “fair-skinned Aboriginals” alleged to be sailing under false colours. The plaintiffs, in other words, were named and shamed. Clearly, having been held up to public ridicule, they had the requisite legal standing either to sue Bolt in defamation at common law or to invoke the Racial Discrimination Act.

  The CSU Appeal Committee cited the Bolt case in support of its own finding that my views, as expressed in class and in an essay that I distributed to some of my classmates were not made “reasonably and in good faith” during academic debates and discussions. But the facts of my case are very different from those in Eatock v Bolt.

  I am alleged to have demonstrated intolerance towards female and ethnic students. The Bolt case featured a small army of personally aggrieved “fair-skinned Aboriginal” plaintiffs. In my case, there is only one formal written complaint from a female ethnic student.

  Another female ethnic student, Katalina Tahaafe-Williams, one of my Tongan classmates, was interviewed during the sub rosa “investigation” of the complaints against me in September 2011. In that interview, she asserted baldly that I am “really offensive, everything [I say] is offensive.” In her view, I made “the classroom environment uncomfortable.”

  Mrs Tahaafe-Williams is married to the General Secretary of the Uniting Church and was herself employed for years by that church and its UK affiliates. She is also a militant feminist and a committed “anti-racist” activist.