WHEN Universiti Teknologi Mara (UitM) students launched a “wear black protest day” recently to ensure that their university would continue not to allow non-bumiputras in, alarm bells should have rung in academic circles about what kind of critical thinking and progressive philosophy we are imparting to our graduates from the so called “hallowed halls” of academia.
After 37 years in academia, even using the word “academia” no longer has any pride, much less value, to me. I have witnessed the slow deterioration of Malaysian universities for 37 years, and this culminates in the deafening silence from any academic on the validity of a protest against a temporary pathway for a few surgeons to complete a course in cardiothoraic surgery.
