Australian National University chancellor Gareth Evans has suggested there were enough warning signs for institutions to take action and prevent their campuses being "infected" by problems seen in the United States.
Professor Evans, a former Labor foreign minister, also defended the ANU's rejection of Ramsay Centre philanthropic funding, saying the decision was based on "alarm bells" over contractual arrangements and not hostility to the idea of a Western civilisation program. He lashed activists at the University of Sydney for opposing the principle of a Ramsay partnership, accusing them of "nonsensical" anti-intellectualism.
At an ANU summit on academic freedom and autonomy on Wednesday, Professor Evans said Australia did "not presently have anything remotely resembling a free speech crisis", backing comments on Tuesday from leading academic Glyn Davis, who dismissed the issue as a "confected calamity".
There was "no obvious present need" for a review of free speech on university campuses, Professor Evans said, rejecting the process established by the Morrison government that will consider measures to safeguard an environment of free inquiry in higher education.
But there have been enough incidents in Australia and abroad to justify consideration of basic academic principles and identify "early warning signs", he said.
Professor Evans pointed to a "handful" of campus speakers being disinvited or shouted down by protesters, "a few instances" of student activists advancing censorship and political correctness, cases of universities censuring academics for public statements, and the Ramsay Centre's conditions on its philanthropic funding for a Western civilisation degree.
He also criticised the "unprecedented ministerial intervention" by former education minister Simon Birmingham to veto research funding grants and government moves for "far-reaching national security" restrictions on some research collaboration.
"These various developments, rare or overblown though they may be, do raise issues of, variously, free speech, academic freedom and academic autonomy about which we do need to get our heads clear and perhaps think afresh," he said.
"I hope — and if I prayed, I would pray — that our universities never become susceptible to the kind of safe spaces/no platforming/trigger warning diseases that have infected a number of US campuses and which do have some advocates here."
He argued there were some acceptable limits on free speech and uses of "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" to warn people of disturbing content and protect minorities. But he said universities "should set the bar very high indeed" when considering such constraints.
Professor Evans also renewed his defence of the ANU's termination of its dealings with the Ramsay Centre, pointing to the centre's apparent hostility to academic autonomy on multiple fronts. He said left-wing hostility like that seen at the University of Sydney was not a factor in the ANU's decision.
He urged Sydney to "put a big Monty Python foot on the head of those academics who are going along with this crap about Western civilisation" being inherently bigoted.
"It is essentially nonsensical and a university should not tolerate that degree of anti-intellectualism," he said.
Professor Evans also argued that universities should commit to paying for security precautions for controversial events, saying it was "unconscionable" to make speakers or protesters foot the bill for exercising their rights.
Education Minister Dan Tehan has suggested protesters pay some of the costs following an incident at the University of Sydney where the organisers of an event were charged for the security burden.
