More than one hundred staff and students have protested against the University of Western Australia Academic Council’s decision to cut a series of arts majors.
The university would rather spend the $90 million it received in federal funding this year on new buildings, research and a pretentious advertising campaign with the slogan “Pursue Impossible”.
One gender studies student said, “These cuts are a humiliation to the history of women’s liberation”.
The cuts will also lead to job losses. As one lecturer attending the protest said: “There is more funding going to research than there is to actual teaching, the overall aim is to get the university into the top 1 percent so that more international students who have to pay straight up attend UWA”.
The UWA Socialist Alternative club organised and built the protest in less than a week. The club went all out – leafleting, sticking up hundreds of posters and making speeches at the beginning of lectures.
However, the UWA Guild was opposed to the protest from the outset. Under pressure from the obvious hostility to the cuts, the guild organised a last minute “read in” outside the empty office of the dean of arts.
One student from the “Indie” faction that runs the guild went so far as to discourage students from attending the protest after a lecture announcement.
While the Academic Council voted to go ahead with the cuts, it will be subject to a review process – and more protests.
