Do confidential donors threaten academic freedom?

Fabian Robertson investigates.

Photography by Andy Wang.

 The University of Sydney (USyd) declined to reveal the sources of the $291.48 million in donations it received from 2019 to 2020. Pulp acquired information regarding donations to the University via a successful application under the Information Access Application (GIPA) Act: a statute that requires government agencies to disclose certain operational information.

The findings revealed that USyd received $125.47 million in 2019 from 6071 unique donor accounts and $166.01 million in 2020 from 5673 unique donor accounts. However, the University declined to reveal the sources of these donations, finding an “overriding public interest against the disclosure of this information”.

In justifying the decision, the University found that the “seeking and receiving of gifts and donations is a function of the University” and revealing the identities of donors would make donors “much less likely” to donate. Additionally, the University found that identifying donors would constitute revealing “personal information” given to the University in confidence upon making that donation.

Donations provide universities with funding for research, infrastructure, scholarships and support for underprivileged students. Since then-Vice Chancellor Michael Spence’s launch of the INSPIRED fundraising campaign in 2008, USyd has received over $1 billion in donations: funding more than 2000 scholarships, 10 buildings and 35 academic chairs, with $368 million of the total sum directed towards “life-changing medical research”.

But donations can be saddled with vested interests. A qualitative review of donations larger than $50 million to United States colleges from 2010-2018 found that 57 per cent of donors donated to “support a cause or political agenda”. Such politically motivated philanthropy is also prevalent in Australia.

Since 2018, the Ramsay Centre has faced backlash for attempting to impose its conservative political agenda on higher education by offering Australian universities subsidised courses in Western Civilisation. The Centre’s board includes John Howard and Tony Abbott, and its website describes Paul Ramsay’s vision of a “cadre of leaders … whose awareness and appreciation of their country’s Western heritage and values… would help guide their decision making in the future”.

An open letter signed by 202 USyd academics in 2018 argued the Centre was attempting to “shape the ideological and political tenor of its educational offerings”. Although negotiations eventually broke down with USyd and ANU, the Ramsay Centre established ongoing partnerships with UOW, UQ and ACU.

The establishment of the Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne in July this year has sparked similar concerns regarding the undermining of academic independence by wealthy donors. The Institute is a joint venture by the University and the Liberal Party-aligned Menzies Research Centre and was funded by a $7 million grant from the Federal Government in 2017. Its board includes Sky News commentator Peta Credlin, Chairman of the conservative think-tank the Public Affairs Institute Geoffrey Hone, former Howard minister David Kemp and former Liberal candidate Georgina Downer.

An open letter signed by 742 people demands the University cease plans to establish the Institute, framing it as an “attempt by the right wing of the Liberal Party and their supporters to purchase a space of public and scholarly influence in Australian universities”.

University of Queensland Professor of Politics and Public Policy, Katherine Gelber, argues that “when industry and political figures from outside academia enter into partnerships with universities, they must do so in a manner that preserves academic freedom”. Gelber defines academic freedom as the protection of university activities central to the creation and dissemination of knowledge, including the freedom to choose course content, research areas and the nature of academic debates.

The Ramsay Centre and the Robert Menzies Institute represent recent examples of wealthy entities attempting to impose their political ideology on higher education through donated funds. Importantly, however, both projects were highly publicised. They are therefore subject to criticism and open discourse from students and staff about how they, as external entities, may undermine the independence of the respective institutions they hope to influence.

As a result, the Ramsay Centre failed to establish partnerships with USyd and ANU, while its partnerships with UOW, UQ and ACU are ostensibly contingent on the maintenance of the universities’ academic freedom. At UniMelb, public concerns may halt the progress of the Robert Menzies Institute, or at the very least will go a long way to protecting the university’s academic freedom.

The majority of donations to USyd evade this important accountability check - they are protected by confidentiality and are not subject to public scrutiny. The USyd community will likely never know the sources of the $291.48 million donated since 2019 and will therefore not be able to assess any potential threats to academic freedom. Of course, USyd itself has measures to protect its independence from any scheming donors. But these didn’t stop USyd from seeking funding from the Ramsay Centre to establish a course in Western Tradition in 2018. And, in an unprecedented climate of economic precarity, who is to say how desperate our university elites might be for minted donors to splash some ideologically motivated cash?

In rejecting Pulp’s GIPA request, the University claimed that publicising donations would make donors “much less likely” to donate. But if donations are truly motivated by altruism, why must they all be shrouded in anonymity? What would these donors have to hide? Surely, the only donors who would benefit from evading public scrutiny would do so because they could be seen as having ulterior motives for their contributions.

USyd’s new Vice Chancellor, Mark Scott, acknowledged external influence from confidential donors is “possible”.

“I used to work as a newspaper editor and money would come in from advertisers. But the editorial independence was primary because of the integrity of those Fairfax newspapers as I was working there. That is a similar value set that I have seen at the university. The reputation and independence of the university is paramount and overwhelms any other interest,” said Scott.

SRC President, Swapnik Sanagavarapu, said he believes “confidential donations jeopardise the integrity of the academic and research agendas of this university”.

“Much of research in STEM is sponsored by fossil fuel or weapons companies, creating spectacular conflicts of interest. In the US, we’ve seen many cases of ‘dark money’ lobby groups attempting to sway the research agenda of institutions - we should know if this is occurring here,” he said. 

Admittedly, some donors may prefer to stay anonymous to avoid being inundated with donation requests from other non-profits. But this is surely outweighed by the benefit of ensuring the complete transparency and independence of the University.

Sanagavarapu concedes that “there is probably an argument in favour of donor confidentiality in some limited circumstances, but in general there should be a vastly greater amount of scrutiny over the process”.

“USyd is a public institution, and the community has a right to know about the people (and more likely corporations) that are funding operations,” he said.

It would be remiss to ignore the enormous benefit of donations to higher education; the results of the INSPIRED campaign speak for themselves. But the confidentiality that underpins the current donation process represents a threat (if only a dormant one) to USyd’s academic freedom and, by extension, a threat to its very operation as an independent repository and generator of knowledge.