Bundling diverse critiques of universities into a single accusation of being too ‘woke’ is populist but unhelpful, Griffith University Vice-Chancellor Carolyn Evans has said.
Speaking to Future Campus, Professor Evans said that universities had been criticised as the perceived vanguard of social change in the past – for example as being hotbeds of communism during the Cold War – with little proof.
“I am not a big fan of slogans as a substitute for thinking,” Professor Evans said.
“The question is not can you put a big label on everything you are concerned about and call it woke, but rather what specific policies or actions are a concern.
“If you are asking universities to step back on their commitment to trying to include people from a wide variety of social backgrounds in having the benefit of university education., well, I, for one, am not for stepping back on that. If people want to call that woke, I actually think it’s a silly thing to call it, that all Australians should support that, but label away if that’s what you want.”
Professor Evans said there were some bad faith criticisms of universities as ‘woke’ by people who held opposing views on issues such as climate change.
Academic staff were not just entitled, but in fact were obliged, “to do their work and sometimes to tell hard truths to power.”
“It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be thinking, is there enough scope for intellectual diversity in our universities? I think on the whole particular and small areas that might have become too inward-looking. Not that any of those particular views are wrong, but are there enough views? That’s a very reasonable question.
“It’s a terrible worry looking at the way the United States is going. I don’t believe Australia has or has ever had the same extremes of political culture that the US has had. That’s disappointing to some people who want, whether on the left or the right, to see a more robust embrace of their ideology. But I think it served us pretty well in having a more stable society over a long time.”