Conversation article: The State Library of Victoria controversy shows what can happen when institutions cling to ‘neutrality’
Added by Michael Bromage on July 22, 2024 at 12:04 pm.
The State Library of Victory has tarnished its reputation, but the dispute offers an opportunity to reexamine its approach.
For months now, the State Library of Victoria’s official explanation for the “postponement” of its Teen Writing Bootcamp workshops has been the need to ensure safety for all involved.
The bootcamps benefit youth across the country. The State Library hires writers with diverse expertise and experiences to teach them. In March, authors Omar Sakr, Alison Evans and Jinghua Qian, all of whom have all been vocal critics of Israel’s war in Gaza, were taken aback when they were informed their workshops had been cancelled, a week before they were due to give them.
The library explained the unexpected postponement was a result of it “taking its obligations for safety of participants, presenters and facilitators very seriously” in “a time of heightened sensitivities”. It has promised the bootcamps will be rescheduled, though there is still no indication when that might be.
This week, newly-released emails reveal that “safety” may not have been the main concern for senior management and board members. Rather, the emails focused on the authors contracted to teach the bootcamp workshops and, particularly, their views and statements on Palestine.
A consistent element in library communications, including the emails shared by The Age, is insistence on the “neutrality” of the library. “We must adhere to a policy of strict neutrality,” asserted former Labor MP and then board member Maxine McKew. “The Library is apolitical,” insists official communications.
Yet the emails corroborate the version of events consistently advanced by the authors who saw their teaching contracts cancelled. Over 100 library staff argued in a letter to management that the library committed “censorship and discrimination” with its decision.
Continue reading at source…
https://theconversation.com/the-state-library-of-victoria-controversy-shows-what-can-happen-when-institutions-cling-to-neutrality-235004
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Last updated by Michael Bromage on July 22, 2024 at 12:04 pm.
