The arrival of the New Left at Sydney University, 1967‐1972

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to distinguish the main features of the outburst of student radicalism at Sydney University in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Design/methodology/approach -The paper traces developments in student politics at Sydney University from the 1950s onwards, in both the Australian and international context. Findings -The rise of the New Left was a moderate process in 1967 but became more energetic in 1969. This was aligned with a similar trajectory with the marches by radical opponents of the Vietnam war. The New Left: provided challenges to the university curriculum (in Arts and Economics) and challenged middle-class values. Many components of the New Left claimed to be Marxist, but many such components rejected the Marxist commitment to the working class and communist parties.Research limitations/implications -The investigation is limited to Sydney University. Originality/value -Although the endnotes list numerous references, these are largely specific. Very few general surveys of the New Left at Sydney University have been published.

Student Activism in Higher Education: The politics of students’ role in hegemonic university change

“…Fraser & Taylor, 2016;Gramsci, 1996;Shear, 2008). The academic staff and student populating the university has shed its conservative keeping with the hegemonic order of colonial origin, and while the institution briefly flirted with a radical flare during the 1960s and 1970s, the successive reconstituting of governance towards a system that fundamentally acts for profit has gripped the very core of higher education in Australia (Barcan, 2007(Barcan, , 2011Brooks, 2017;Buckley, 2014;Forsyth, 2014Forsyth, , 2020. New models of direct-control become evident, as the university's senior governance bodies increasingly mirror the corporate board, controlled by the capitalist interest and bodies singularly receptive to the ruling class's common sense (B.…”

“…At a point in the 1960s, left politics fit students like a glove. Rather than universities accepting only traditionally rich white men, suddenly a diversification enabling working class white men to enter higher education created a political force of the working class with access to intellectual spaces (Barcan, 2011;Forsyth, 2014;Marginson & Considine, 2000). This was particularly the case in the anglophone west university landscape.…”

The Margaret Bailey case

“…Such critiques were a consistent feature of student radicalism at university campuses across Australia in this period (Barcan, 2011; Forsyth, 2014, ch. 4; Murphy, 2015).…”

“…This new figure owed much to the broader climate of political dissent that characterised this period, one often recalled as a time of generational upheaval. In particular, the rise of student activism on university campuses served as an important model and source of support for younger activists in schools (Barcan, 2011, pp. 85-86; see also Gerster and Bassett, 1991, p. 102; Mansell, 1994, p. 57).…”

“…High school students also appear briefly in the literature on the anti-war and other protest movements of the late 1960s and 1970s, although rarely as central actors (e.g. Barcan, 2011, pp. 85-86; Gerster and Bassett, 1991, pp.…”