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The discussion examines claims of academic autonomy, concluding the autonomy rationale may be a red herring. Attention shifts to how “Western civilisation” is framed, contrasted with concerns about left-wing hegemony and course content. The piece argues debate and funding should be encouraged, not stifled, and critiques the Ramsay pitch and its historical narrative assumptions.",{"@graph":69,"@context":118},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/three-cheers-for-the-ramsay-centre-martin-davies/594855/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/three-cheers-for-the-ramsay-centre-martin-davies/594855.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Mary Man","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-06","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":19},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does the author say about the “academic autonomy” justification?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The author claims the proposal presupposes a contentious narrative of history that contemporary historians find objectionable, potentially fostering it rather than enabling open inquiry.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does the author recommend handling the debate on Western civilisation?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The author urges that debate and funding should be encouraged to explore where such courses lead, rather than snuffing out discussion and refinement.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":120,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":122,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":124,"site_id":62},594855,1793059035,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":127},{"doc_id":124,"user_id":128,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":129,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":130,"file_id":131,"file_url":132,"file_type":133,"file_size":134,"view_count":19,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":29,"language":135,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":136,"faqs":137,"seo_title":138,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":139,"read_time":140,"preview_page_count":4},7421720224475,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W  \nThree cheers for the Ramsay Centre  \nMartin Davies University of Melbourne  \nIn 2018 Australia’s leading national university, the ANU, decided to break off consultation with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation over a generous bequest to funda course on Western civilisation. It is not every day that a university decides to turn down a $3 billion bequest to funda humanities program (Groch, 2018) . In these straitened times this seems a very regrettable decision indeed.  \nAs a side note: There is usually never enough funding for the humanities, and many outside the tertiary sector seriously question the value of what little funding thereis. Instead, the humanities are criticised for their capacity to soak-up meagre funding that could be used to greater benefit in medicine, engineering and other practical areas. My own discipline, philosophy, comes in for particular hostility in this regard (Tovey, 2018) . Put simply, research on the philosophy of Hegel does not matter as much as important work on prostate cancer. There is some truth in this. As a man of a certain age I am more worried about my prostate that anything Hegel thought. But despite this, I find these attacks on the humanities to be unsubtle in the extreme. They are ignorant of the many surprising contributions the humanities have made and continue to make. The debate between what is considered ‘wasteful’and‘not wasteful’in terms of funding priorities is a debate that is stale, old and tired (Davies, 2013) .  \nThe ANU/Ramsay dispute is, in effect, a reversal of this bleak situation; it is a case of a university turning its back on humanities funding.  \nAccepting for the purposes of the argument that humanities should receive some funding, what is at the heart of the decision of a major university to turn down the magnanimous proposal offered by the Ramsay Centre?  \nAcademic autonomy  \nThe issue of academic autonomy has been raised as areason, but this is, at best, ostensible. Former PM Tony Abbott, and Simon Haines, the Director of the Ramsay Centre, have both claimed that the terms of the contract made no demands on the ANU in terms of appointments, or autonomy (Haines, 2018; Urban, 2018a) . I have no privileged access to the terms of the contract, which I assume is commercial in confidence, but this can’t bethe real reason. If this was, it would have been merely a matter of finessing the contract to the satisfaction of both parties, since neither of them appear to disagree with the proposition that a university should be able to run its own affairs. I suspect the ‘autonomy’issue is a red herring.  \nThe real reason for the decision seems to hinge on the notion of‘Western civilisation’.The place and purpose of this in a university like the ANU is what is really at issue. The ANU claims to already offer courses in elements of Western culture, more than 150 in fact, albeit they do not come under the rubric ‘Western civilisation’(Powell, 2018) . Might this not be enough?  \nClearly, not in the view of the Ramsay Centre and its supporters. If it were, they would not be making another offer.There is doubt that many of these courses resemble anything like the ‘great books’ courses offered in the US (Balbones, 2018) . It is also suggested that the current ANU offerings are,in any case,‘framed through the perspectives of class, race, gender and associated theories’and thereby infused with left-wing ideology (Urban 2018b). (The ANU may dispute it, but there is certainly evidence that leftwing agendas have more or less taken over the humanities  \nvol. 61, no. 2, 2019 Three cheers for the Ramsay Centre Martin Davies 59  \nA U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W  \nin university departments (Windshuttle, 2018) . Late as it may be, there are moves against this hegemony: witness the rise of the Heterodox Academy) .  \nA class-focussed, left of centre approach, is not quite, it appears, what the Ramsay Ce","cbCaidXNJznoUZFM","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaidXNJznoUZFM","pdf",131352,"English","# Three cheers for the Ramsay Centre\n## Academic autonomy\n## Western Civilisation?","[{\"question\":\"What does the author say about the “academic autonomy” justification?\",\"answer\":\"The author claims the proposal presupposes a contentious narrative of history that contemporary historians find objectionable, potentially fostering it rather than enabling open inquiry.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the author recommend handling the debate on Western civilisation?\",\"answer\":\"The author urges that debate and funding should be encouraged to explore where such courses lead, rather than snuffing out discussion and refinement.\"}]","Three cheers for the Ramsay Centre - Martin Davies | PDF",1792079972,15]