Australia: Students’ reasons for right-wing ban ‘wrong’

A student guild was wrong to cite the non-alignment of values as a reason to veto participation in its Market Week by a right-wing youth group, a vice-chancellor says.

The Queensland University of Technology Student Guild ­refused to offer the group, Generation Liberty, a stall in Market Week, which is held the week after the university’s Orientation Week.

Vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil said on Friday that Market Week, which was run by the Student Guild, not the university, did not host stalls from any political group. “But Generation Liberty was wrongly advised that its ­application had been declined on the basis of its values,” Professor Sheil said.

The Student Guild had provided Generation Liberty “an ­incorrect reason for the decision”, she said.

Professor Sheil said her statement was intended to correct the record. “Any assertion that I or the university have exercised bias or failed to protect free speech are factually incorrect,” she said.

Professor Sheil was backed by Nicholas Saunders, chief commissioner of higher education regulator the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, who told a Senate estimates committee hearing on Thursday night that after investigating QUT’s ­actions, it considered the matter closed.

Professor Saunders told the committee that Professor Sheil had learnt through media reports of the Student Guild’s rejection of the Generation Liberty application for a stall.

“The vice-chancellor took immediate steps to remedy the matter by first informing the Student Guild that the university considered its response to Generation Liberty as inadequate, and it emphasised to the guild that it was expected to operate in ­accordance with the university’s commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression,” Professor Saunders said.

“Secondly, the vice-chancellor invited Generation Liberty to participate in the university-run Orientation Week, which ­occurred in the week preceding Market Week. “I understand Generation ­Liberty did not accept the university’s offer.”

Professor Saunders said the QUT Student Guild was “quite separate from the ­university”. “It has its own legal status, it has its own governance and its own management. “It runs Market Week, not the university,” he told the Senate estimates hearing.

He said TEQSA was empowered to regulate universities, and did not regulate the QUT Student Guild.

But he said he had seen The Australian’s report that Generation Liberty, which is the youth arm of libertarian think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, had made a complaint to the Human Rights Commission alleging discriminatory behaviour by the QUT Student Guild.

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