 James Vigus reports on the
fraught state of queer student life on campus.
It would be an understatement to describe
queer life on Australian campuses as being at crisis point in 2008.
This is not due to a lack of
openly queer students on university campuses; we’re everywhere. Neither is it
due to a high level of homophobia within the wider student population. If
anything, judging by the equal rights campaign centred around same-sex marriage
recently run by the National Union of Students (NUS), the majority of students
strongly oppose homophobia.
No, the reason for the crisis is
due to a combination of the government under-funding education; a lack of
student welfare; and attacks on student unions.
The impact of the previous government’s
policy of voluntary student unionism (VSU) and the refusal of the Rudd Labor
government to repeal VSU has devastated students’ capacity to organise around queer
issues; whether running equal rights anti-homophobia campaigns, to presenting social
events and providing badly needed services at below market rates.
Our student unions, and hence
campus queer departments, are under siege.
VSU has gutted many; indeed, some
queer departments no longer exist.
And not having fully functional,
well-funded queer departments controlled by students has silenced us.
The majority of elected student
representatives, including almost all queer/sexuality officers, are unpaid. Previously
they would have received a small honorarium to enable them to break from study
and focus on organising activity around improving queer life on campus.
Weaker student unions have allowed
some university administrations the opportunity to attack queer spaces. RMIT forcibly
moved the queer space this year, with the queer student representatives now
fighting to save their office space. Macquarie Uni closed its queer space
without consultation, until a student campaign won the space back. At Swinburne
Uni, the student union is battling to survive with no funding; they don’t even have a queer space.
Relying on universities and
governments to provide queer services and representation instead of students is
dangerous and unrealistic. Government policy of under-funding public education
has seen, over the last 20 years, the user-pays ideology of the free market
imposed on Australian public education. This has meant students footing a
massive bill for an under-funded education system that’s been streamlined to
fit the needs of Australian big business.
University administrations run campuses
like businesses to ensure they make a profit; a situation that’s in direct
opposition to the interests of tertiary students, as illustrated by the attacks
on Social Science courses (which include such disciplines as sociology,
politics and cultural studies) across the country.
Deemed unsuitable to the needs of
business, university administrations are more than happy to cut such courses. Queensland
University of Technology and Melbourne University have seen massive attacks on
their arts faculties, with similar cuts planned at La Trobe. At Melbourne Uni,
Gender Studies was one of the first subjects to go in recent cuts, highlighting
the way the contemporary education system is governed by corporate rather than
social interests. And among the many courses that are disappearing are those challenging
old social norms such as homophobia.
Australian students now pay the
second highest fees in the developed world to attend a public university,
second only to the USA. In terms of student welfare, the burden again is on
students. Only a few students qualify for Youth Allowance, which is not enough
to live on anyway, so many students work long hours to support themselves. In
effect, this means many drop out of university, or scrape though their degree
with little study time; they certainly don’t have time to engage with or
establish a vibrant queer life on campus.
High fees, and almost non-existent
student welfare, mean that the government expects the majority of students to
live at home, dependent on their parents. This is an outrageous situation for
anyone to face when they want to study full time. It’s bad enough not having
rights when you are under 18, but to be forced to be financially dependent on
parents whilst at uni can be disastrous; particularly for queers, who often
suffer in the traditional family structure, where parents and/or siblings are non-accepting
of gender identity, sexuality and political views.
Such situations often end in
violence, or with queer students booted out onto the streets.
Our student unions are the
collective voice of students; they’re there to stand up against government and university
administrations in the students’ interest. We need to rebuild and support our
student unions; to demand that billions of dollars don’t just sit in budget
surpluses, but instead go to funding education and student welfare.
Only a strong collective voice of
students acting in unison, in a union, can ensure that Australian campuses can
once again be places with a strong and vibrant queer life that challenges,
changes, and betters the world.
The national queer student conference Queer Collaborations,
with the theme ‘Freedoms Are Won, Not Given’ takes place July 1 – 4, at Melbourne
University Student Union. Details:
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Fighting for their rights
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