Drew Fraser

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Andrew William Fraser (also known as Drew Fraser, born 1944) is a Canadian-born academic and was an associate professor in the Department of Public Law at Macquarie University in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. [1] Fraser holds a BA (Hons) and an LLB from Queen's University, an LLM from Harvard University, and an MA from the University of North Carolina. His most recent book is The WASP Question (2011).

Contents

Academic career

Fraser studied advanced constitutional law at Harvard Law School. He taught American constitutional history at Macquarie University in Sydney until 2005.

Views

Non-white immigration and multiculturalism

In July 2005, Fraser received national attention in Australia with a letter to his local newspaper, signed with his academic title, in which he claimed that importing Sudanese refugees threatened to turn Australia into "a colony of the Third World" and "Experience everywhere in the world shows us that an expanding black population is a sure-fire recipe for increases in crime, violence and other social problems". [2] [3] [4]

Macquarie University responded that it distanced itself from Fraser's remarks, but backed the right of academics to say what they wish in a responsible way. The acting vice-chancellor, John Loxton, stated there was no place for racism at the university, but it "recognises and protects academic freedom as essential to the conduct of teaching, research and scholarship".

Fraser was accused of being affiliated with White Supremacist groups, including the Patriotic Youth League (PYL), by the anti-racist group FightDemBack. Although both he and the PYL initially denied any connection, Fraser admitted he had attended PYL meetings and signed up to the PYL website after video footage of a PYL member describing him as an official legal adviser surfaced. [5]

Following an outcry from Sydney's Sudanese community, Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor Dianne Yerbury on 29 July 2005 decided to suspend Fraser from teaching any further at the campus on the grounds that the race debate was "threatening to spill over into the classroom" and was "affecting the university's ability to operate effectively." [6] Macquarie University offered to pay out the final year of his contract but Fraser declined, describing the offer as a "dishonorable discharge". [7]

On this incident, Fraser wrote:

Truth is no longer a defence when it comes to charges of academic deviance. Instead of an invitation to debate the issues, the Vice-Chancellor's office sought to get me off campus as soon as possible by offering to buy out my contract. The head of Human Resources made it clear to me that my public comments were damaging their efforts to market Macquarie University to foreign students.

When I refused the offer on the grounds that it amounted to a dishonourable discharge, VC Di Yerbury, ordered that I be suspended from teaching. This was justified on the specious grounds that the safety of students supposedly had been threatened by, among others, my supporters! For what must be the first time in academic history, alleged threats by outsiders to disrupt classes were met, not by tightening security to deal with the disrupters, but by getting rid of the disruptee. [8]

In August 2005, more than 300 Macquarie University staff and students attended a forum on racism and free speech, at which Fraser (as well as Sudanese community and University members) was allowed to put his views from the floor. [9]

Fraser's suspension ended in mid-2006, when an early-retirement package took effect.

In September 2005, Fraser wrote an article advocating a return of the White Australia Policy, entitled "Rethinking the White Australia Policy". The article was set to be published in the law journal of Deakin University, but the university directed the journal not to publish it. [10] "Rethinking the White Australia Policy" has since been published and circulated across the internet. [11]

A complaint from the Sydney Sudanese community about the original newspaper letter was upheld on 31 March 2006 by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, on whose direction Fraser reluctantly apologised for his remarks. [12] [13]

Fraser addressed the American Renaissance Conference in February 2006, alongside speakers such as Nick Griffin of the British National Party and Professor J. Philippe Rushton. This was followed up later in the year with appearances at the Inverell political forum in March and at the Sydney Forum in August alongside speakers who included Jim Saleam of the Australia First Party.

Freedom of speech in Australia

In an article for Alternative Right entitled "The Cult of "The Other"", Fraser warned that academic freedom was being stifled in Australian universities. He wrote:

Academic freedom in Australia is dying before our eyes; another sacrifice performed in the now holy name of "The Other." In the universities, as elsewhere, public criticism of privileged minorities must walk a shaky legal tightrope... Unfortunately, in a mass-mediated wasteland of intellectual cowardice and political conformity, Australian universities are not an oasis of dissent. If my experience as a teacher, scholar, and, more recently, a first-year theology student is a reliable guide, academia is utterly hostile to free thought and frank discussion on race, ethnicity, and gender. [14]

Writings

Fraser has written numerous articles on ethno-nationalist topics for publications such as VDARE , Alternative Right, and The Occidental Observer .

In 2011 Fraser published The WASP Question, in which he examined the failure of Anglo-Saxon peoples in North America, Australia and elsewhere to defend their ethnic identity and interests in the postmodern, multicultural age.

In The WASP Question, Fraser writes:

The defining characteristic of WASPs White Anglo-Saxon Protestants] is that they are much less ethnocentric than other peoples; indeed for all practical purposes Anglo-Saxon Protestants appear to be all but completely bereft of in-group solidarity. They are therefore open to exploitation by free-riders from other, more ethnocentric, groups. It seems unlikely that nominally Americanized Changs, Singhs, and Gonzales are as committed in a practical sense to the anti-discrimination principle as Anglo-Saxon individualists. There is no shortage of evidence to suggest that the Changs, the Gonzales and the Singhs (not to mention the Goldmans with their well-known animus toward WASPs) still practice forms of ethnic nepotism strictly forbidden to Anglo-Protestants. In these circumstances, an interesting question arises: are contemporary WASPs entitled to recognition as an historic people? If not, why not?

Selected works

Books

Articles

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macquarie University</span> University in Sydney, New South Wales

Macquarie University is a public research university based in Sydney, Australia, in the suburb of Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of Sydney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Australia policy</span> Historical racial policies in Australia

The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting in 1901. Governments progressively dismantled such policies between 1949 and 1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Anglo-Saxon Protestants</span> Sociological category in the US

In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or WASPs is a sociological term which is often used to describe white Protestant Americans who are generally part of the white upper-class, historically mostly Mainline Protestant elite, though definitions may vary; typically or most consistently, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants are of British descent. WASPs have dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States. From the 1950s, the New Left criticized the WASP hegemony and disparaged them as part of "The Establishment". Although the social influence of wealthy WASPs has declined since the 1960s, the group continues to play a central role in American finance, politics and philanthropy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglosphere</span> Grouping of English-speaking nations

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Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from, the English people, England, English culture or the English language, such as in the term Anglosphere. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British descent in Anglo-America, the Anglophone Caribbean, South Africa, Namibia, Australia, and New Zealand. It is used in Canada to differentiate between the French speakers (Francophone) of mainly Quebec and some parts of New Brunswick, and the English speakers (Anglophone) in the rest of Canada. It is also used in the United States to distinguish the Latino population from the non-Latino white majority.

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Dianne Yerbury is an Australian university administrator and company director. She was the Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia from 1987 to 2005.

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References

  1. ↑ Fraser publishes as "Andrew" but is generally known as "Drew". The Department of Public Law was not part of the Macquarie law school and has now been abolished.
  2. ↑ "Refugees and 'Anglo-Australians'", Parramatta Sun 6 July 2005.
  3. ↑ Academic stirs fight over race
  4. ↑ Academic refuses to retire in race row
  5. ↑ Fight dem back! Archived 8 July 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ↑ Race row professor suspended for 'safety' - National - smh.com.au
  7. ↑ Radio National - Counterpoint 01/08/2005
  8. ↑ Andrew Fraser, "Academic Bulldust Versus Racial Realism", The Independent Australian, Spring 2005, p. 15.
  9. ↑ "Race Attack's Positive Side Archived 23 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine ", The Weekly Times (Sydney), 10 August 2005.
  10. ↑ Academic attacks race article ban - National - theage.com.au
  11. ↑ A shortened version, with the most controversial elements edited out, was published in The Australian newspaper on 21 September 2005.
  12. ↑ "Academic apologises over racist letter". 30 August 2006.
  13. ↑ Hareer v Fraser (Ref 2016307FC). (HREOC is now named the Australian Human Rights Commission.) The decision and Fraser's responses have appeared on the website of the Adelaide Institute, run by Holocaust denier Fredrick Töben.
  14. ↑ Andrew Fraser, "The Cult of "The Other"", Alternative Right, 2 March 2012
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