With so much going on in higher education policy at the moment, the National Student Ombudsman legislation has not received much attention. But university submissions to the Ombudsman bill Senate inquiry raise important issues. I also put in a submission.

Academic judgement versus academic matters

University submissions make similar academic freedom objections to the bill as one of my blog posts on the National Student Ombudsman.

One issue is the scope of ‘exercise of academic judgement’, which is an ‘excluded action’ that the Ombudsman cannot investigate. The bill’s explanatory memorandum seeks to distinguish ‘academic judgement’ from ‘academic matters’, such as claims for special consideration and discipline for academic misconduct, which it thinks should be within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

The QUT, Monash, University of Melbourne, ATN, Gof8, UA, UTS and UQ submissions all raise concerns about this aspect of the bill. As UQ says:

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