Administration officials at the University of South Australia have essentially pulled the plug on the Male Studies initiative at that school, effectively bringing years of academic preparation to a sudden halt. The school made the decision after a flurry of false allegations were made by journalist Tory Shepherd in the online magazine Adelaide Now.

Shepherd falsely reported that the Male Studies group had ties to “hate groups,” one of them being A Voice for Men. Her article, which misleadingly suggested a connection between the Male Studies group and the A Voice for Men website, also claimed that the A Voice for Men organization had been declared a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. That claim is false. Indeed, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Arthur Goldwag made public statements expressing the fact that no such designation about A Voice for Men had ever been made.

The motives behind the false reporting, which also involved support from Australian ideological feminists such as Dr. Michael Flood, appears to be one of maintaining ideological control of the conversation on sex and gender, keeping it in feminist hands.

Dr. Miles Groth, one of the proponents of Male Studies at the university posted the following to the Male Studies Facebook page, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.

”Two years of preparation and the support of the university from the start now seem to be jeopardy because of unnamed critics making erroneous accusations. It has been known for some years now that academe is held hostage by radical ideological feminists in the humanities and social sciences, and administration, who fear them.”

The university administration changed direction and turned against the initiative after the online smear campaign.

Interestingly, Adelaide Now subsequently reported on the withdrawal of support from the university as though it was an unbiased news story. This is after they published the unsubstantiated and unsupported attacks on A Voice for Men and the Male Studies group.

Sources:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/university-of-south-australia-distances-itself-from-males-studies-proposals-20140113-30quw.html

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/lecturers-in-worldfirst-male-studies-course-at-university-of-south-australia-under-scrutiny/story-fni6uo1m-1226800150348

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/university-of-south-australia-gives-controversial-male-studies-course-the-snip/story-fni6uo1m-1226801378560