An Australian university is under pressure to change its name because the former prime minister it is named after held racist views.
Deakin University in Melbourne is named after Alfred Deakin, who served as Australia’s second Prime Minister in 1903, and the nation’s first Attorney-General.
He helped pass the Aboriginal Protection Amendment Act of 1886, which led to the forced removal of Indigenous children from their families, known as the Stolen Generations.
Deakin also helped create the White Australia Policy in 1901, which restricted the number of non-white migrants coming to Australia.
Deakin University is under pressure to change its name after concerns surrounding the policies introduced by Alfred Deakin
In 1901, Deakin controversially predicted: ‘In another century, the probability is that Australia will be a white continent with not a black or even dark skin among its inhabitants.
‘The Aboriginal race has died out in the south and is dying fast in the north and west even where most gently treated.
‘Other races are to be excluded by legislation if they are tinted to any degree. The yellow, the brown, and the copper-coloured are to be forbidden to land anywhere.’
Deakin was prime minister of Australia for three terms – from 1903-1904, 1905-1908 and 1909-1910. He died in 1919.
Deakin University in Melbourne is named after Alfred Deakin, who served as Australia’s second Prime Minister in 1903, and the nation’s first Attorney-General
Sixteen academics from Deakin University created a seminar titled ‘We need to talk about Alfred Deakin and his ideal of a White Australia’, in 2020, and questioned why the university was named after someone with such racist views.
However the university’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Iian Martin said a potential name change was not on the cards.
‘This is not something that we are looking at and is absolutely not something that those Indigenous leaders…are asking to do,’ Professor Martin told The Age.
While acknowledging the views of Mr Deakin would not be acceptable today, Prof Martin said changing the name would not help people understand previous injustices.
‘If we simply expunge things from the record, what hope is there learning from the mistakes of the past,’ he said.
Indigenous leaders, university staff and relatives of Mr Deakin have all been consulted by the university, Prof Martin said.
He stressed Indigenous leaders did not want the name to be changed.
According to their website, Deakin University ‘is committed to Reconciliation and Treaty, advancing the educational aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’.
‘All our endeavours aim to reflect Australia’s full history and seek to build an inclusive future’.
Deakin University has been a leader in Indigenous education for 40 years, the vice-chancellor added.
Mr Deakin served three terms as prime minister and was instrumental in Australia becoming a Federation.
He also helped establish the High Court and the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration.
The university’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Iian Martin said a name change was not currently on the cards
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk