Some university events and public ‘symposia’ function mainly as legitimacy theater: they signal commitment to pluralism while structurally avoiding the topics, speakers, or institutional reforms that would actually protect dissenting scholarship. This ritualized signaling substitutes ritual for remedy, leaving the material drivers of censorship—union politics, DEI bureaucracy, student‑activist pressure, and informal norms—unchallenged.
— If conferences and public events are used to perform virtue rather than surface and resolve governance failures, policy fixes will be delayed and public trust in higher education’s commitment to free inquiry will erode.
Holly Lawford-Smith
2025.12.01
100% relevant
Author Holly Lawford‑Smith attended an Australian Academy of the Humanities symposium that she reports featured repeated acknowledgements, left‑leaning framing, an avoidance of theory until late panels, and an absence of speakers known for defending heterodox inquiry—concrete signs of signaling over substantive defense.
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