The Trump Administration’s survey requesting information about US-funded research at Australian universities was full of questions our own politicians should have asked long ago.

For years Australia’s academic standards have been falling. The Productivity Commission’s five-year inquiry found highly variable and poor-quality teaching is failing students, who enter the workplace unequipped to meet real-world demands.

Yet our politicians stood by and did nothing. Universities used to be institutions where academic excellence, knowledge and intellectual discourse were prized. But in recent years they have become highly politicised centres of activism and censorship.

The rise of radical postmodern ideologies in universities has coincided with a growing culture of censorship and groupthink on campus, and poorer outcomes for students. The potential relationship between the two should have been of interest to our political leaders.

Instead, it was the Trump administration’s questionnaire that asked important questions about the university sector’s obsession with gender ideology, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and ‘climate justice’.

For example, question 19 asks, ‘Does this project take appropriate measures to protect women and to defend against gender ideology as defined in the below Executive Order? [yes/no].’ Question 16 touches on the tertiary obsession with climate change asking, ‘Can you confirm this is not a climate or ‘environmental justice’ project or include such elements? [yes/no].’ Finally, Question 15 asks about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) projects. ‘Can you confirm that this is no DEI project or DEI elements of the project? [yes/no].’

Perhaps the Australian government has forgotten the critical role it plays in directing the course of education. The cyclical relationship between education, culture, and politics drives societal change. Each informs and shapes the other. A change in one area will have a flow-on effect on the others.

But in recent years Australian politicians have, in the name of academic freedom, stood back from the tertiary sector and allowed universities to spiral from institutions of intellectual rigour to centres of activism.

Critical race theory, identity politics, and radical gender theory now dominate intellectual discourse. Today, many courses are taught through the lens of class, race and gender. Postmodern theories push the narrative that gender is a social construct, that Australia is systemically racist, and that science, reason, and biology are all just the product of Western power structures.

As academics have increasingly fallen prey to groupthink and political ideologies, universities have seen a simultaneous rise in censorship. This was another issue addressed by the Trump Administration. Question five asks, ‘Does your organisation encourage free speech and encourage open debate and free sharing of information? [yes/no].’

Today at Australian universities telling a joke or using someone’s nickname could get you in trouble with bureaucrats who justify their roles by adding to the growing number of policies regulating university life.

The IPA’s latest Free Speech on Campus Audit found the total combined hostility scores of all Australian universities has more than doubled since 2016. Of Australia’s 42 universities, 38 have policies hostile to free speech. For example, The University of Wollongong’s Inclusive Language Guideline instructs students to avoid words like ‘man’, ‘ladies’, ‘mothering/fathering’, and ‘wife’.

Across Australia’s 42 universities there are now 77 policies or strategic commitments pledging allegiance to at least environmental sustainability, Indigenous issues or gender inequality. Central Queensland University enforces a protocol that says, ‘direct verbal confrontation’ and ‘expressing disagreement’ with Indigenous people should be avoided to ‘preserve consensus’.

Ultimately, regardless of how much we may or may not like Trump, he is ‘America first’ and this is an admirable trait. Australian politicians would do well to be more ‘Australia first’. The fact that the US government was the first to ask questions about the ideological battle for young minds taking place in our universities is a damning indictment of Australia’s political class.

Much of Trump’s popularity comes from his willingness to take a stand on controversial issues. Australian politicians brave enough to follow suit and stand up to tertiary institutions may find they are rewarded by support from voters whose values differ greatly from the niche and politicised worldview currently pushed by universities.

Brianna McKee is a Research Fellow and National Manager for Generation Liberty at the Institute of Public Affairs.