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A Monash University engineering student has complained that he had marks deducted for failing to include an Acknowledgement of Country at the beginning of his assignment.

According to the Daily Mail, Monash Uni recently introduced a policy requiring students to add the message recognising traditional owners at the beginning of all assignments — or face losing marks.

What an Acknowledgement of Country has to do with being proficient at engineering is anybody’s guess.

Make It Count

But I would urge students to exercise caution before reacting badly to this. There could be an upside.

My advice would be to confirm that the Indigenous welcome is included in the assignment word count.

If it is not, accuse the university of tokenism.

But if the acknowledgement is part of the word count, students would be crazy not to do it.

Let’s imagine the essay was required to be 1000 words and the Acknowledgement of Country was included in that, I would not only welcome “elders past, present and emerging”, I would name them. All of them.

(You don’t need to know them. Just make names up. The lecturer is hardly going to check that each of people you mention is biologically descended from an Indigenous person, has been identifying as an Indigenous person, and is accepted by the elders in an Indigenous community. Who has time for that? Not even Federal Government departments issuing grants have time for all that!)

I’d let the acknowledgement run to hundreds of words. Why not? Are they going to deduct marks because you made too much of Aborigines? I doubt it.

I would be tempted to use 996 words listing all the uncles and aunties I can think of, and then finish the essay with: “Also, engineering is cool.”

I would likely graduate with honours.

Now it’s true that every bridge I ever built would collapse, but that would be a little bit beside the point, right?

Cheapening Compulsion

Seriously, this compelled progressivist speech is incredibly counterproductive. The more they force people to respect Indigenous culture, the less people will respect indigenous culture. It’s human nature.

Indigenous people with common sense (surely there are more than just Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price) should be demanding this silly Acknowledgement to Country — when your aeroplane lands, when you attend your kid’s awards night, when you to to the footy, when you are required at the council meeting, and now every time you write an essay at university — stops.

It’s not only silly, but it is producing the very opposite reaction intended.

By the way, imagine the uproar if Monash University required students — on threat of losing marks — to include a recognition of the Holy Catholic Church at the beginning of all assignments.

We’d never hear the end of it.

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Originally published at The James Macpherson Report.

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Photo by Armin Rimoldi.