Benjamin Hourigan

Today, the last in a series of emails I exchanged with Michelle Smith, Publications Officer of the University of Melbourne Postgraduate Association, about the relationship between identity politics and VSU (Voluntary Student Unionism). In today’s installment, I explain that one of the reasons I support VSU is because I believe it’s immoral to force people to pay for services rendered to others. This wasn’t intended to be the last word on the subject, but there wasn’t anything else to say after this. Next: Something on another topic…

My final email to Michelle Smith

Thanks again for your reply, Michelle. It’s a pleasure to read such thoughtful responses.

I have just one short thing to say, and it’s possibly where the source of our disagreements lies. I believe that it is immoral to coerce people into helping provide services or advocacy for others, and that to do so is destructive to the liberty of all. The only things I believe people are entitled to expect are the freedom to behave as they see fit (provided they coerce no other), and to have their own bodies as their property. People have no entitlement to assistance of any kind, whatever their circumstances, if that assistance must be extracted involuntarily. It is admirable that UMPA does provide products, services, and assistance that can’t be made to turn a profit or even to break even. However, under VSU, UMPA will not be able to force students to co-operate, and will have to rely on their generosity instead. This is as it should be. Start preparing convincing appeals to students’ sense of charity if you wish things to continue as they are at UMPA, but don’t try to trick them into believing that their own freedom of choice is a bad thing.

By the way, I consider the ban on UMPA mass-emailing postgraduates denies all its staff their entitlement to behave as they see fit. It also disadvantages students by preventing them from receiving direct email communications from UMPA even though they may (as I would) prefer that money, paper, and labour not be wasted on mail-outs.

I hope to hear that your colleagues approve of my reproducing your responses. If not, I invite you to post a comment to the entries appearing on my blog from Sunday, so that your point of view can be represented.

Sincerely,

Ben Hourigan

Today I post the last of Michelle Smith’s responses to my comments on the “Women’s Edition” of Postgraduate Review. Here Michelle explains some more about how and why themed editions of PGR are put together, and writes about her opposition to VSU because of its impact on UMPA’s ability to provide services to students. A reminder that these words are Michelle’s alone, and aren’t an official statement from UMPA. Tomorrow: A final email from me in which I explain my most basic reasons for supporting VSU…

A further response from Michelle Smith

Dear Ben,

Thanks for your reply also. I would still beg to differ that the “women’s edition” or any of the other editions we’ve had on, for instance, international student issues have been irrelevant to all other students as we have always included significant other content (half the magazine or more) on issues/reviews unrelated to the particular group we may be focusing on. We have had other very tenuous themes such as “opportunity” and “new beginnings” which have just served as ways to tie the content together and to provide a cover image- there are always certain requirements for inclusion in every edition as mandated by UMPA policy (officer reports, higher education news, UMPA events etc.)

I would also suggest that we present these issues very differently to commercial publications, say in the instance of Cleo, because we specifically took up the concerns of women as postgraduates in the articles on mature-age women or women studying computer science in the student profile. These perspectives related specifically to the postgraduate experience of the students involved, and I can’t see why a man couldn’t read an article about a woman studying IT or a mature-aged woman coming back to study. I’d be equally as happy to look at men studying primary teaching or nursing in future editions.

It really is impossible for every one article to relate to every one postgraduate student, so we hope to cover a range of key issues for postgraduates in every edition as well as some that may only affect a certain proportion of them. There are specific issues of concern for international students that do not usually apply to local students (visas, say) and it seems strange that we shouldn’t look at subjects that may help these students because it won’t benefit local students who don’t face the problem. Or, perhaps we shouldn’t look at issues surrounding Research PhDs (I have a student who has volunteered an article on an alternate model of the PhD for edition 3), as the majority of postgraduates are actually coursework students.

As you have raised some of the reasons for your opposition to compulsory payment of the Amenities and Services Fee, I will just briefly go into why I support it. Many of the services a small organisation such as UMPA provides won’t be able to be funded on a user pays basis. Things such as independently representing students when they have a concern with their supervisor (the number one subject students come to us about), are faced with an allegation of academic misconduct, or are in a dire emotional state due to study/work/life pressures are not necessarily things that you can operate at market rates for students who may be on low incomes. Not every student has one of these problems, this is true, but if it were only students who could afford to pay commercial advocacy or legal rates who contributed to keeping these staff on the payroll UMPA would not be able to be paid their wages. In effect, the services would have to disappear or be scaled back to a bare minimum, thereby removing the “choice” to seek help if a student wishes to pay because it simply won’t be on offer. It will not be easy for UMPA to roll out memberships like the undergraduate union as postgraduates enrol throughout the year; we are not permitted to email them; at the Melbourne Business School postgraduates are enrolled on a trimesterly basis; and some postgrads enrol without ever setting foot on campus.

UMPA’s activities will most likely be reduced to about a third of their present level. While some things such as our 360 guide for postgraduates, lockers, study carrels etc. could still be provided if we charged individual students for them, other things which are less tangible, but probably more important for students’ completion rates, would disappear. Similarly, as with the advocacy services, students who could not afford to pay market rates ($100-$150 per hour times what could be more than ten hours work) would miss out.

I will consult with my manager and fellow UMPA representatives as to whether I will allow you to publish my email responses on your blog. I would be happy for you to do so, but need to bear in mind that UMPA does work as a representative student organisation and I need to take into account opinions as to whether this would be a helpful or harmful thing to do.

I also hope you will keep in mind that this was just one edition out of more than forty editions of PGR, and that our next will address how to get/cope with tutoring work, what Centrelink/Family Assistance Office benefits students may be entitled to, the
student union employment service, how to manage your study psychologically by the counselling service etc. -basically articles that are of potential import to most postgraduates. PGR is actually the only thing we know all postgraduates receive from us (as we cannot email them due to university policy), so it is our way of letting them know about our events and support services as well, not just a magazine for enjoyment.

I’ll let you know about the permission for your blog when I’ve spoken to my colleagues. I will also discuss the possible publication of your letter in PGR, although our next edition is in the layout stage right now and due at the printer quite soon.

Best wishes,

Michelle

Today, my email conversation with Michelle Smith, Publications Officer for UMPA, continues with more from me. Tomorrow: A further response from Michelle…

For newcomers, VSU = “Voluntary Student Unionism,” and UMPA = “University of Melbourne Postgraduate Association.”

Ben Hourigan on VSU and Postgraduate Review, part 2

Dear Michelle,

Thankyou for your prompt and extensive reply. I did not intend my letter to be a complaint: rather I had composed it as though it were to be published on a letters page, intending to reflect on the relationship between identity politics and VSU. You and your editorial staff put in the work to compile PGR, and I would consider it inappropriate to complain about content unless it was factually incorrect. Content decisions are yours to make according to your professional judgement.

I completely understand why UMPA representatives and staff would oppose VSU, since the organisation relies on funds compulsorily extracted from students. UMPA’s opposition to VSU makes sense from it’s own perspective, but I do not believe it is in the interests of students for the organisation that represents them to oppose their freedom of choice and association. On that point, Steven Halliwell’s reasoning in “Voluntarily Student Unionism is Anti-choice” is entirely spurious and misleading: there is, logically, nothing anti-choice about making something voluntary.

In response to your rejoinder that:

The fact that we have devoted one edition to women’s issues (as well as providing regular content such as higher education news, book reviews, relevant concerns such as plagiarism) in ten years of this publication hardly seems like a scourge of rampant Leftism.

I agree, but I wouldn’t say that what I characterised as “a kind of new left politics that has wholly assimilated identity politics” was intended to refer to “a scourge of rampant Leftism” in the alarmist Cold War, Keith Windschuttle or Miranda Devine way. Rather, I’d say that the basic tenets of collectivist and identity-political thinking (that too much economic or personal freedom is unethical, that capitalism is a pernicious influence on life, that affirmative action on behalf of disadvantaged social fractions is desirable, etc.) have so permeated intellectual life in this and so many other countries that they could hardly fail to influence the activities of a student association and its staff.

I reiterate my point: letting an organisation take students’ money and spend it on products and services they may or may not want is not a fair or efficient way of treating anyone. The only fair way is to indulge the atomization of society by letting students make their own purchasing decisions. The very existence of PGR is against this principle. Whether you publish practical advice or reviews or propaganda, students have to pay for it whether they wanted it or not.

For the record, I don’t care what social fraction you or anyone prefers to favour, but whether you produce a women’s edition or a men’s edition or a queer edition or a straight edition or anything similar, using funds that come from all students to serve the interests of one group of students is unacceptable. Though I disapprove of such publications in general, since they encourage members of social fractions to pit themselves against each other, there is one way to produce them with minimal controversy. Magazines directed at a social fraction can easily be produced and sold for profit or using voluntarily given funds, and then marketed or distributed to a particular niche audience. Therein lies some of the beauty of free markets. If students, male or female, want a copy of a “women’s edition,” they will soon be able to take their amenities fee and use it to buy a few copies of Cosmo or Cleo. Or they may just choose something that doesn’t indulge their childish instinct to pit “us” against “them.”

On these issues, I think we’ll agree to disagree. I’ll be posting my letters to you on my blog at http://benhourigan.com: if you’d like your full response(s) to appear unedited on the site, please give me your permission by email.

Sincerely,

Ben Hourigan

In response to the email I sent to Postgraduate Review (posted yesterday), Michelle Smith sent me some detailed and thoughtful responses. Michelle has kindly given me permission to reproduce her words (unedited) here, so that her point of view can be represented. Please note that these are Michelle’s words, and they do not represent the position of UMPA as a whole. Tomorrow: More from me…

Michelle Smith responds

Dear Ben,

I am the UMPA Publications Officer and am responsible for the content of Postgraduate Review, as directed by the Publications Committee of the Association (made up of a number of postgraduates inside and outside UMPA who give suggestions and directions for content). Vyvyan Cayley is a staff member who copy edits the publication for accuracy, hence why I am responding to you instead of her.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to our edition. Ultimately UMPA’s existence and the future of the publications we produce is under threat as a result of proposed VSU legislation. While I understand that some students hold the view that they do not support compulsory student unionism (although no one is forced to be a member of UMPA under Victorian law), UMPA Council (made up of 17 students elected freely and fairly by over 1000 postgraduates via the Victorian Electoral Commission) has decided that we will seek to fight VSU because it will jeopardise the existence of the Association which we represent. It is just not logical that we would support the decimation of the services that we believe and know to be helping many postgraduates in need.

I am following the direction set out by UMPA’s Council, Research and Campaigns Committee and Publications Committee in reminding students that this publication will be very difficult to fund next year. If you believe that editions such as this one which included a number of articles on women’s issues are a misdirection of student funds, then you are entirely entitled to feel justified that VSU will ensure your money is not used for publications/events you do not support. Please note, though, that yours is the only such complaint we have received from the over 10 000 postgraduate students who receive this mail out.

I have looked after PGR for the past two and a half years and have really tried to focus the magazine on practical helpful advice for postgraduates rather than focusing on generalist articles that may simply be written by postgraduates. In response to feedback received, it seems most postgraduates are happy with this more practical focus of PGR. The fact that we have devoted one edition to women’s issues (as well as providing regular content such as higher education news, book reviews, relevant concerns such as plagiarism) in ten years of this publication hardly seems like a scourge of rampant Leftism.

Our Council, in fact, could not be described in this way at all, and is primarily (or almost exclusively) made up of students who have had no previous association with student politics, and who are not members of a political parties. We actually have a very large proportion of international students on our Council who are there simply because they want to contribute to bettering services and support for themselves and their fellow international students. They are consequently very worried about what will happen to the support they rely on from UMPA should VSU come in, and are not interested in advocating a left or right standpoint.

In this year of impending VSU legislation UMPA has a line item of a mere $2000 of its budget of over $1 million set aside for the campaign against VSU. Our focus has been upon delivering support, services and representation that is of direct benefit to students. The addition of the banner on the edition of Postgraduate Review you refer to did not cost any extra money, and a similar slogan has been used on a back cover of PGR in 2003.

It seems then that your primary concern is with the theming of the edition on women’s issues. We have had previous editions that have focused on international student issues, mature age students, coursework students and the upcoming edition is on “getting by” regarding employment and managing your degree psychologically. We try to cover in each edition issues as they relate to all students and also focus on issues that groups of students may face. We unfortunately do not have a women’s officer this year and I received many suggestions that including a number of articles on this subject in PGR may do well to redress the situation for the year. The article on the Women’s March Meet is always included each year, so really there were only three other additional articles included on mature age women postgrads, feminism today (at the request of the Publications Committee who were by no means Leftist, but interested to know what the state of feminism was today) and a profile of a woman studying in an area without many other women (we would normally run a profile of a student anyway). The article on parenting written by the Language and Learning Skills Unit was not specifically targeted at women, but intended as a help to all postgraduates managing work, study and raising their families- not all postgraduates are full-time research students in their twenties.

UMPA is an open and accountable organisation and you are entirely welcome to contribute to the direction of PGR via joining the Publications Committee or running for UMPA Council (you will find the election materials in the July edition of PGR). I believe if you were to participate in the running of UMPA you would see that there is no Leftist drum beating just people trying to work to make life easier for postgraduates. That said, it is not going to be possible to create a publication that is perfect for every postgraduate given they range from 23 years old to 80 years old, can be rich or poor, full-time research students or professionals doing an MBA at night, but we do try to meet the needs of as many of them as possible.

As for the existence of a letters page, because of the relatively non-contentious nature of our publications we have barely received any letters in my term running PGR - in fact, we received just one email concerning an election article that gave the policies of every political party in relation to higher education issues. After letting us know his concerns, I believe the student was happy just to have spoken with us rather than seeking publication of the letter.

Having worked at UMPA for over two years now and knowing what the organisation faces I am personally very upset and worried about the support and services postgraduates will lose next year. Nevertheless, I respect your position on VSU and will not argue with you on that matter. I am, however, certain that this edition of PGR reflects what students and UMPA’s committee structure directed me to do. Like our political leaders’ decisions, they may not please all of the people all of the time.

Please do suggest any articles that you would like to see in future editions and I will be most willing to bring them to the Publications Committee.

Best wishes,

Michelle

On Thursday 16 June, I sent this article to Vyvyan Cayley, the copyeditor of Postgraduate Review (PGR). I’d hoped to see it on the letters page, before I realized PGR doesn’t have one, but I sent it anyway. Michelle Smith, the Publications Officer of the University of Melbourne Student Association (UMPA), is responsible for compiling PGR, and we exchanged a few emails on the topics I raised. Tomorrow: Michelle Smith’s response. But first, my original email, which Michelle has told me will appear in the next issue of PGR...

My Email

Postgraduate Review vol. 2, no. 2 bears a banner crying that “under VSU this publication will cease to exist.” How perfect that this banner should appear on a “Women’s Edition,” the existence of which demonstrates so well why the government’s VSU legislation will be good for students.

Compulsory fees lend themselves to appropriation by student associations dominated by a kind of New Left politics that has fully assimilated identity politics. This politics is always trying to advance the interests of social fractions, particularly those that are in the minority, or considered “disadvantaged” or “oppressed.” With the women’s edition of Postgraduate Review, we see this thinking in play. To use Steve Halliwell’s words, identity politics is “fundamentally sinister in its attempt to exacerbate the divisions and tensions that of necessity exist in any large groups.” Halliwell was painting economic liberalism, the ideology behind VSU legislation, as divisive (2.2, p.6), but New Left identity-politicking is far worse on this score.

To illustrate the divisiveness of identity politics, think of all the people who are likely to perceive me as a misogynist patriarchal oppressor because I dare to criticise the publication of a women’s edition. In the New Left schema, I and these people are supposed to hate and fight each other. In ideologies that recognise free-market capitalism as an effective way of distributing scarce resources, people with different interests don’t have to fight each other: they just make different economic decisions and let market forces settle the incompatibilities.

Awaiting VSU, I and other students pay for the Postgraduate Review, whether or not it interests us or caters to our particular social fraction. Having one group of people pay for services provided to another group is, at university, commonly thought of as “equitable.” Yet true equality is not equality of outcome (i.e. supposedly equal representation of all interest groups by a student association), but equality of opportunity. VSU will give all students an equal opportunity to spend as they wish the money they currently pay to student associations. They may choose to pay it to a student association that makes spending decisions on their behalf. But I suspect students will prefer to keep the money and spend it as they want to. VSU will treat all students fairly, letting them serve their own interests as well or as poorly as they choose.

VSU will be good for students because they will no longer have to pay for services (or issues of Postgraduate Review) directed to advance the interests of other individuals or of social fractions to which they do not belong.