Australia’s ‘wokest’ university will scrap its divisive and mandatory ‘Manawari’ course that labelled non-Indigenous students ‘visitors’ and ‘settlers’.
The controversial module at Sydney’s Macquarie University made headlines last week when a student revealed she was required to take the class which called her a guest in Australia – despite being born and raised here.
‘The tutor made us all raise our hands and she asked overseas students to put their hands down, then students who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to put their hands down,’ student Ava told 2GB’s Ben Fordham.
‘The rest of us with our hands still remaining, she basically called us all guests and that we don’t belong here in Australia.
‘Considering I was born here 20 years ago and grown up here my entire life, I just was a bit taken back by it and it didn’t sit with me very well.’
But after being reported on radio and by Daily Mail Australia, and questions asked by Liberal MPs in the state parliament, the university has axed the module.
Macquarie vice-chancellor Bruce Dowton was summoned to the NSW Parliament, where he admitted that errors had been made.
Liberal upper house member Susan Carter asked the vice-chancellor if the Manawari module included material ‘that non-Indigenous students are taught that they are visitors and settlers in their own land?’
Macquarie University in Sydney (pictured) has sensationally backflipped on a mandatory module that labelled non-Indigenous student’s ‘guests’ and ‘settlers’
Bruce Dowton (pictured), vice-chancellor of Macquarie University, has backed down on a woke student module after he was summoned to the NSW Parliament
Ms Carter suggested the controversial module ‘does not really build a culture of inclusion, which is one of Macquarie’s core values’.
‘Those words were in the introduction to this module when that was raised with me as we do regularly for any course,’ Mr Dowton replied.
‘I ask that that be reviewed. Those words have now been removed.’
Fordham said it had taken students complaining for the module to be scrapped.
‘They were sick of being shamed over their skin colour, and it’s hard to believe that this could be true in 2025, but it is, white students are being told, both in class and in writing, that Australia is not their country,’ he said on Tuesday.
‘They were considered settlers or guests.’
Fordham added that ‘thanks to these uni whistleblowers, the woke tests that students are forced to complete are also under review’.
The radio host said the modules ‘usually have nothing to do with what the student is actually learning, but the students are forced to do them anyway’.
Ben Fordham (pictured) said it had taken students complaining for the module to be scrapped
Rachel Merton, another Liberal member of the NSW upper house, asked Mr Dowton if ‘Aboriginal cultural awareness’ was a ‘compulsory mandatory study module’.
He said it was, but ‘those programs and that nature is under review’.
Fordham said ‘If the vice-chancellor believes in respecting his students’ wishes, and if he wants to treat them like adults and not children, he’ll place the shame sessions that we’ve been seeing at Macquarie University well and truly and firmly on the chopping block’.
He said students should not be ‘hammered with woke virtue signalling c*** at uni’.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Macquarie University and its vice-chancellor Bruce Dowton for further comment.
