Repealing Auku is only part of the work; the harder part is to change the culture it helped entrench

RECENTLY, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim came to my university to talk about the Universities and University Colleges Act (Auku) 1971, students, academic freedom and the future of Malaysian universities.

It was difficult not to think about what had happened at Universiti Malaya (UM) 12 years before. In 2014, when Anwar was Opposition leader, UM tried to stop a student-organised event featuring him by closing the university gates, only for students to push through anyway, after which disciplinary action was taken against those involved.