Regular readers will know that I consider promotion of the humanities and social sciences in a university systems to be of paramount importance in preserving an informed citizenry, which is a precondition for democracy. These areas of our education system have been under constant attack by the neo-liberal bean counters in government education bureaucracies and management positions within universities. While I regularly write about the impacts of poor fiscal management, in particular, in the current context – fiscal austerity – on unemployment and low income workers, one of the other casualties of neo-liberalism has been a university systems. The damage to our university systems go well beyond the squeeze of funding and a user pays mentality that I’ve written about in the past. Last night, on our national broadcaster’s prime evening current affairs programme – 7.30 – we were confronted with a classic example of how compromised our universities have become in Australia. The – 14th Dalai Lama – was banned from visiting a campus. Why? Guess!