Jamie Walker | September 22, 2008
A UNIVERSITY has washed its hands of feuding academics who are waging their own culture war over the teaching of terrorism subjects, insisting it is an issue for scholarly debate, not disciplinary action.
As reported in The Weekend Australian, Anthony Burke, an associate professor at the Canberra-based Australian Defence Force Academy, last week demanded that James Cook University investigate his chief adversary, senior lecturer Merv Bendle, for academic misconduct.
Dr Bendle had taken up the cudgels on behalf of researchers and security analysts who believe university terrorism studies have been hijacked by left-leaning academics pursuing an apologist, postmodernist agenda.
Dr Burke, 42, fumed that Dr Bendle had improperly suggested he was pro-terrorist and called for JCU to investigate whether this amounted to "serious academic misconduct". However, he last Friday withdrew his demand to vice-chancellor Sandra Harding for an investigation, conceding "it may be that administrative action is not the best way to address the problem".
In a statement to The Australian, the north Queensland university said Professor Harding had sought advice from its human resources department on Dr Burke's complaint.
"But it was decided this was a matter of debate between academics putting their views and opinions forward in the interests of discourse and dialogue," a university spokesman said.
The argument is set to rage on, after Dr Burke revealed he had written to Quadrant magazine, the conservative quarterly that published Dr Bendle's attack on the supposed hijacking of terror studies, to rebut the Townsville academic. Dr Burke said he was yet to hear whether Quadrant would publish him.
Another prominent academic, Paul Wilson, chair of criminology at Bond University, weighed in on Dr Bendle's side. Professor Wilson wrote to Professor Harding last week to defend the JCU man, even though he said he was known to be more "liberal" than Dr Bendle on terrorism issues.
Welcoming the decision by JCU to bow out of the feud, Professor Wilson said yesterday: "I think universities have to be very careful about repressing academic debate on contentious social issues and sanctioning academics who speak out with unpopular positions."
ADFA, which offers degree courses to military officer cadets through the University of NSW, has backed Dr Burke. A second Canberra academic, Paul Pickering, of the Australian National University, complained to JCU about Dr Bendle's Quadrant article, but stopped short of demanding action.
The row has touched raw nerves within the defence-security academic establishment, with its implications for the training of the next generation of ADFA's leadership.
Dr Bendle, 57, wrote in the current issue of Quadrant that universities had become a battleground in the war on terror, "where Islamist groups openly recruit members, while an updated, post-9/11 version of the old neo-Marxist, postmodernist orthodoxy on terrorism dominates among academics".
Dr Burke, who describes his political orientation as "liberal-left", rejected Dr Bendle's claim that he had overreacted by seeking a university investigation.
"It's a funny situation when you have people utilising academic freedom in a sense to attack it," Dr Burke said.
"But you have got to stand up for your own position ... I just don't like people saying that I support terrorism, when I don't."
A UNIVERSITY has washed its hands of feuding academics who are waging their own culture war over the teaching of terrorism subjects, insisting it is an issue for scholarly debate, not disciplinary action.
As reported in The Weekend Australian, Anthony Burke, an associate professor at the Canberra-based Australian Defence Force Academy, last week demanded that James Cook University investigate his chief adversary, senior lecturer Merv Bendle, for academic misconduct.
Dr Bendle had taken up the cudgels on behalf of researchers and security analysts who believe university terrorism studies have been hijacked by left-leaning academics pursuing an apologist, postmodernist agenda.
Dr Burke, 42, fumed that Dr Bendle had improperly suggested he was pro-terrorist and called for JCU to investigate whether this amounted to "serious academic misconduct". However, he last Friday withdrew his demand to vice-chancellor Sandra Harding for an investigation, conceding "it may be that administrative action is not the best way to address the problem".
In a statement to The Australian, the north Queensland university said Professor Harding had sought advice from its human resources department on Dr Burke's complaint.
"But it was decided this was a matter of debate between academics putting their views and opinions forward in the interests of discourse and dialogue," a university spokesman said.
The argument is set to rage on, after Dr Burke revealed he had written to Quadrant magazine, the conservative quarterly that published Dr Bendle's attack on the supposed hijacking of terror studies, to rebut the Townsville academic. Dr Burke said he was yet to hear whether Quadrant would publish him.
Another prominent academic, Paul Wilson, chair of criminology at Bond University, weighed in on Dr Bendle's side. Professor Wilson wrote to Professor Harding last week to defend the JCU man, even though he said he was known to be more "liberal" than Dr Bendle on terrorism issues.
Welcoming the decision by JCU to bow out of the feud, Professor Wilson said yesterday: "I think universities have to be very careful about repressing academic debate on contentious social issues and sanctioning academics who speak out with unpopular positions."
ADFA, which offers degree courses to military officer cadets through the University of NSW, has backed Dr Burke. A second Canberra academic, Paul Pickering, of the Australian National University, complained to JCU about Dr Bendle's Quadrant article, but stopped short of demanding action.
The row has touched raw nerves within the defence-security academic establishment, with its implications for the training of the next generation of ADFA's leadership.
Dr Bendle, 57, wrote in the current issue of Quadrant that universities had become a battleground in the war on terror, "where Islamist groups openly recruit members, while an updated, post-9/11 version of the old neo-Marxist, postmodernist orthodoxy on terrorism dominates among academics".
Dr Burke, who describes his political orientation as "liberal-left", rejected Dr Bendle's claim that he had overreacted by seeking a university investigation.
"It's a funny situation when you have people utilising academic freedom in a sense to attack it," Dr Burke said.
"But you have got to stand up for your own position ... I just don't like people saying that I support terrorism, when I don't."
Source: The Australian
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