More by Michael Duffy on Drew Fraser's suspension:

More by Michael Duffy on Drew Fraser's suspension:

Freedom of speech takes a fall
By Michael Duffy
August 6, 2005

Sydney Morning Herald

THE ANDREW Fraser affair is not the first time an attempt has been made to stop discussion of race and IQ at Macquarie University. It also happened when I was a student there in 1977. The British psychologist Hans Eysenck was visiting Australia to talk about the subject, and had already had a lecture stopped by demonstrators at Sydney University. At Macquarie the university administration, to its credit, made sure the talk went ahead. That was in the days when its security guards were used to protect free speech, not suppress it.

We often hear that tolerance is a - perhaps the - central Australian value. But its meaning tends to shift depending on the issue at stake. Recall the slogan "All animals are equal" in Animal Farm. In the closing pages of George Orwell's book, this receives the qualification "but some animals are more equal than others". Likewise with tolerance, some views seem to be more tolerable than others.

Intellectuals have generally been tolerant of extreme views on the left. At Macquarie I studied a course called Marxism, run by people who appeared to believe in it. At least one was a member of the Communist Party of Australia, dedicated to the overthrow of our social system by force. This situation was public knowledge, by no means unique to Macquarie. It was deeply offensive to the many Australians who'd suffered at the hands of communist regimes, but it was generally tolerated on the grounds of free speech.

In contrast, many intellectuals were vicious in their condemnation of Pauline Hanson, predicting she would unleash the innate racism of ordinary Australians and turn them against immigration... It was also widely predicted that Hanson and One Nation would excite violent racists and produce blood in the streets. But it was her supporters who were beaten, abused and intimidated around Australia. It was her meetings that were shut down due to violence and threatened violence. We need to remember this now, when Macquarie University evokes concerns about safety to justify its extraordinary decision to ban Fraser from teaching. [More]

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer