Robert Austin, sacked lecturer
Here’s a nasty one.
One fine day, the Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt (aka Old Rice ‘n’ Monkey Nuts) editorialises upon the crimes of one Robert Austin.
Subsequently, said Robert Austin finds himself dismissed by RMIT management. His case is the subject of a supportive Workers Online piece:
Victorian secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union, Mathew McGowan, says that while no clear reason for Austin’s potential dismissal has been offered by the RMIT, questions over his future with the university were raised after the article was published.
“He has certainly had the Andrew Bolt article waved in front of him by management,” says McGowan.
The message is pretty clear for academics. If you publish racist articles and barrack for extreme-right wing racist organisations, and though you might have classes cancelled on ‘security’ grounds, you’ll keep your job. Defend the rights of students to organise, and go to the trouble of providing supplementary classes, and get yourself sacked.
Evil Pundit (not verified) wrote:
You are asserting a false equivalence between the two cases. It’s important to distinguish between expression and action.
Fraser merely expressed his opinions in public.
Austin went further, by forcing students to miss scheduled classes to serve his political ends.
In the first case, no dereliction of duty was involved. In the second case, there was a denial of services to students.
The bottom line is, if academics become political players, they also become political targets.
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