Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Just Say It's A Bunch Of Arse, Damnammit

Imagine you were an editor of an art magazine and one of your unhinged contributors pitches a controversial article.

Well, it's not really an article.

It's just a fresh turd smeared on the page.

Other than stupid, boring, poorly researched and a bunch of arse, there's many reasons to cite for refusing to publish the article.

Deakin University's decision not to publish Macquarie University Professor Andrew Fraser's Rethinking the White Australia Policy in their law journal was based on entirely on fears of the University getting done for racial vilification.

The University's Vice Chancellor, Professor Sally Walker told the ABC,
"Universities are not exempt from the law, nor should they should be, and I have sought legal advice regarding Associate Professor Fraser's article."

"The legal advice is that by publishing the article the university would contravene certain laws and I'm not prepared to put the university in that position."
Soft.

Try stupid, boring, poorly researched and a bunch of arse as reasons not to publish.

Professor Fraser defended his article, saying it was approved by two other academics,
"Two academics not known to me looked at the article, suggested some changes which I made and then they agreed that it ought to be published."
Would these two academics possibly be the Deakin Law Journal's Editorial Board member, Professor Mirko Bagaric and senior lecturer Julie Clarke?

Yes, they were the reprobates who argued in a paper that torture is "morally defensible", should be made legal and when many lives are in imminent danger, "all forms of harm" may be inflicted on a suspect, even if this resulted in "annihilation".

Maybe Bagaric and Clarke are Deakin University's real problem. If they are the academics who approved Rethinking The White Australia Policy they should be sacked from the university.

Not sacked for their crackpot views or anything like that, but sacked as incompetent editors who were about to let such a stupid, boring, poorly researched, bunch of arse go to print.

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