Bringing back the contest of ideas
sam fox imagined university life would be the kind of place where different ideas flourished. what he found was the very opposite.
Sam Fox is a current intern at the Menzies Research Centre.
First published in the MRC’s Watercooler newsletter. Sign up to our mailing list to receive Watercooler directly in your inbox.
When I left Sydney to study politics, philosophy and economics at the Australian National University, I thought I was walking into an intellectual battleground — a place where ideas not only clashed, but refined one another as weak spots or inconsistencies arose.
With a copy of Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman in my bag, I was ready to engage, to argue, and to defend what I believed in. But I was also ready to listen — to hear new ideas and challenge my own assumptions. Like Hayek and Socrates, I tried to approach every discussion with humility and the understanding that I could be wrong.
I imagined that university would be a marketplace of ideas, the kind of place where the contest of ideas flourished.
I was wrong.
What I found instead was a culture of ideological uniformity dressed up as diversity. The university that prides itself on “connecting talented people with diverse perspectives” has somehow forgotten to include diversity of thought.
Walk through the main library, and you’ll see on-display sections dominated by gender theory and indigenous studies, but you’ll have to go to the back for writings on economic liberalism and Western civilisation. Step into the law school and you’ll find walls covered in indigenous activist artwork. My residential college proudly displays the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags, but not the Australian flag. How inclusive is that!
These are symbols, yes. But symbols matter. They tell students which ideas are welcome — and which are not.
This exclusion is not only implied, but explicit.
Since the outbreak of war in the Middle East, my university has had regular pro-Palestine protests. Some have drifted dangerously close to endorsing terrorism, with one of the leaders of the ANU encampment telling ABC Radio that “Hamas deserves our unconditional support.”
My residential college never warned students about these protests, nor did it discourage attendance.
Yet when overwhelmingly peaceful protests occurred elsewhere in Australia against large migration, I received an email from my college declaring that there was “no space for hate or racism at [the college],” and warning students to “avoid all protest activity tomorrow for your safety and to not engage with those involved in these marches.”
The double standard spoke volumes. To issue a safety warning for one protest but not another is to imply that certain views are beyond what is allowed, and others are protected.
This is the environment students learn in. Those who disagree quietly learn to self-censor. Even the debating society — whose very purpose is to test ideas and sharpen arguments — shies from open discussion. Many students won’t engage with me simply because I argue that government power should be limited, and that prosperity comes from self-reliance, hard work and entrepreneurship.
The tragedy is that these are intelligent, thoughtful people who have simply absorbed only one set of ideas and lessons. And these lessons travel with them into the workforce, into politics, and into the institutions that shape Australia’s future. When students aren’t exposed to diversity of thought, they don’t just lose critical thinking skills — they lose the capacity to listen, to empathise, and to coexist with difference. When these capabilities fade, so too does tolerance. If we can’t listen to each other at university, how can we expect to do so in public life? Open debate isn’t just good for learning — it’s essential for social harmony.
That’s why I am so grateful for the Menzies Research Centre and its Future Leader Initiative.
As an intern through the program, I’ve had the privilege of helping with research, reports, and articles that reach thousands of Australians, including my own generation. But the greatest gift was not professional experience — it was reassurance. I realised that I wasn’t alone. There are people, serious thinkers and generous mentors, who believe in freedom, enterprise and the dignity of the individual.
Through daily conversations, writing and debate, I found not just confidence, but clarity. I learned how to articulate what I believe without apology — and how to ground those beliefs in evidence and history rather than slogans. And more importantly, I took that courage back onto campus.
This is what the Future Leader Initiative makes possible. It gives young Australians something our universities once promised but no longer deliver: intellectual mentorship, moral confidence and the courage to defend liberal democracy in an illiberal age.
Now is the time for more young Australians to rediscover their voices. If they stay silent, we will continue to graduate cohorts who think that censorship is compassion and that equality of outcome is fairness. But if they speak up calmly, reasonably, confidently we can begin to turn the tide.
You can help. Please consider a tax deductible donation to support the development of me and many others.
By supporting the Future Leader Initiative, you are doing more than funding an internship. You are investing in the next generation of Australians who still believe in open debate, personal responsibility and the freedom to disagree. You are helping to build leaders who will carry those principles into the media, the public service, the courts and the national conversation.