From Tragedy to Farce at Sydney University

For many years now, Quadrant has been describing the tragic decline of Australian universities and their replacement of traditional standards of scholarship with blatant leftist political ideology. In the past twelve months, however, tragedy has turned into farce. In particular, the story of what is now happening at the University of Sydney is enough to make graduates of that once venerable institution laugh or cry, or both.

Things started to go downhill fast in March this year when the University of Sydney appointed Mark Scott as vice-chancellor. Scott had no previous experience as an academic teacher and no research degrees. He usually calls himself “a manager” who claims he can run any organisation along corporate lines. That was what he said when the board of the ABC, on which I sat from 2006 to 2011, employed him as managing director and editor-in-chief. Despite promises that he would pursue greater diversity in the political views of staff appointments—he named Media…