Lindsay Perigo
Lindsay Perigo

Universities - Nanny's Thought Police

The Association of University Staff, known by discerning observers as the Association of University State-Worshippers, are complaining about attacks from the likes of me on their attempted brainwashing of students & censoring of dissenting opinions. The June edition of their in-house broadsheet, in between pitches for femi-nazism & Te Tiriti O Waitangi, says AUS are establishing an award for the "person or persons who have made a significant contribution towards the advancement of academic freedom in New Zealand" in the face of opposition from such Godzillas as Roger Kerr & Lindsay Perigo. For AUS to propose an Academic Freedom Award, I submit, is rather akin to the Christian Temperance Union setting up a shrine to Douglas Myers.

The only freedom of speech the state-worshippers in our state universities are interested in is their own. Depart from their Marxist bromides & you're in trouble. Like the Otago University student who faxed me recently — he got marked down for using research material not on the approved list for his NZ History paper (95% of which was about ugly wimmin & pseudo-Mordi). The approved list consisted of state-worshippers Jane Kelsey, Brian Easton, & Bruce Jesson (along with Colin James, who is not a state-worshipper, merely boring).

Flick over to Politics at Otago & you're likely to get the state-worshipper who's too busy organising demonstrations to offer tutorials. He does have time, however, to teach Socialist Feminism, Radical Feminism, & Marx' Theory of the State. In fairness, he also finds time to mention pluralism & capitalism — as in: feminist critiques of pluralism, socialist critiques of capitalism, etc.!

Anthropology at Otago? Well, you will get tutorials at least — from the leader of the International Socialists group, a wimmin-thing who has been heard to demonstrate her stunning knowledge of NZ politics by saying in a public debate that a mere 11% of New Zealanders vote in national elections (if only!).

Waikato University, of course, is infamous for its outrageous affirmative action programmes, its feminist geography courses, its attacks on reason as a "peculiar fetish," etc. All of this is documented by former Waikato Uni student Robert White in a recent issue of The Free Radical.

Victoria University members of the Association of University State-Worshippers, meanwhile, are planning what may be a knock-out blow against Waikato's claim to the title, University of Political Correctness. The VUW Council's draft strategic plan already proposes to make studies in Asian & Maori culture compulsory. Now, AUS — remember, they're the ones who pretend to support academic freedom — are saying, that's not enough; they want Ugly Wimmin's Studies & "disability issues" made compulsory as well! Can you just imagine it?! — Compulsory Course 335 203 with Dr Eluned Grope-Grunt: "The Orgasm as an instrument of white male oppression — how contemporary feminists have liberated themselves from sexuality through consideration of French, indigenous, black & post-colonial feminists." Or Compulsory Course 335 203 with Susan St Con: "Rape by Rogernomics — deconstructing the phallic connotations of free trade."

While all of this is going on, philosophy departments, from which one would hope for some rays of reason, are either in thrall to this nonsense or off in some noumenal nether-land, agonising over whether, in the light of the twenty-seven possible meanings of the word 'on' in the sentence "The cat sat on the mat," the cat did indeed sit on the mat.

Well, I have this to say to the state-worshippers: your game is up, you mind-crippling parasites of the classroom. Even one of your own, a person of elevated academic status, has seen fit to e-mail me some most interesting insights into your modus operandi, along with the following comment: "I fully endorse your critical evaluations of our university institutions & faculty in this country. Keep it up!"

I shall.


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