ߣߣ��Ƶ’s government is being asked to give legal backing to university autonomy, as “creeping authoritarianism and populist pressure” threaten to straitjacket the sector.

Universities ߣߣ��Ƶ chair Carolyn Evans will tell the National Press Club that the “tide of government overreach” risks undermining the sector’s role as a bulwark of democracy, “especially when that means speaking truth to power”.

In prepared notes for her 26 August address, Evans will say that “the democratic threat is recognised” when governments attempt to regulate media. “The same is not true for universities,” the notes say.

“The creeping regulation over years, the creation of new federal bureaucracies seeking to impose their agendas and their judgment on our work, the populist backlashes from the Left and Right when they don’t like something we do – all this is creating an ever narrower space for freedom of both institutions and individual faculty and students.

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“There is…a reasonable debate to be had [about] the limits of university autonomy and how accountability for public money is overlaid. But at present, there is no debate at all – just an endless sense that whatever regulation seems expedient can be introduced.”

Evans wants the government to “consider legislative protection for university autonomy”, to clarify what governments “cannot and should not interfere with. A thriving liberal democracy requires a range of strong, independent institutions to stand between the significant power of the state and the relatively powerless individual,” the speech notes say.

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“Unions and business organisations, media and religious institutions and – for centuries – universities serve this important role. It is no coincidence that authoritarian turns by governments through global history almost always target the independence of universities early.”

University autonomy is constitutionally protected in many countries with histories of dictatorship, including Estonia and much of Latin America, while Germany’s Basic Law gives constitutional protection to art, science, research and teaching. Other nations give strong legal recognition to key related values like academic freedom, freedom of science and institutional self-government.

New Zealand universities’ role as “critic and conscience of society”, for instance, was enshrined in the country’s Education Act almost 40 years ago.

ߣߣ��Ƶ, however, lacks an overarching legal recognition of universities as autonomous public institutions. Autonomy is conferred or implied through a hotchpotch of state university acts, federal funding conditions, regulations, administrative guidance and convention – potentially leaving it vulnerable to erosion through funding conditions, regulatory expansion and ad hoc intervention.

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Evans, a lawyer who specialises in human rights and religious and academic freedom, will argue that more is needed. “We cannot take our democracy for granted,” her speech notes say.

Citing wartime prime minister John Curtin, she will assert universities’ role as a “citadel” for intellectual, social and moral freedom. “The seat of learning must be the bulwark for liberty.”

Evans will also call the government out for depending too heavily on cash from international education while chastising universities for the same thing. “With the egregious increases in the cost of student visas and post study work rights visas in recent years, the government is becoming reliant on international student income – despite warning universities of the risks of such reliance,” her speech notes say.

“Over decades, both sides of politics have reduced public funding for universities, shifting some of the costs to ߣߣ��Ƶn students while capping the amount they can be charged and thus leaving a large gap in university budgets. Revenue from international students was the only realistic solution.

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“There may be good reasons for reducing the number of international students…but we need an honest and informed policy debate about the consequences. What’s the plan for the financial sustainability of our universities? Will the taxpayer resume responsibility for them or will we as a nation happily see thousands more job losses and the closure of small campuses?”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com