'Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste': The Impact of COVID-19 on Legal Education' by Peter D Burdon comments
The COVID-19 pandemic represents the most significant rupture to universities since the advent of neoliberalism. In Australia, the economic shock was brought about primarily by a drop in international student fees, border closures, plus efforts from the Federal government to keep public universities from accessing financial support. In this paper I discuss the impacts of COVID-19 on legal education. What concerns me in particular is the rhetoric under which massive structural changes have been justified in response to the pandemic. Most commonly, university leaders have sought to externalise the problem and adopt the language of unforeseeability, emergency and necessity. Changes to learning and teaching have also been described as an ‘opportunity’ to re-examine outdated pedagogical practices and forms of assessment. While not denying the unprecedented nature of the pandemic, this paper argues that current changes in higher education are not a break from the past but a continuation of the neoliberal project.
To support this argument my paper proceeds in three parts. In part one I develop the argument that the idea of a university is an empty signifier that changes over time. Attention is given to the role of neoliberalism in shaping the contemporary university and learning and teaching. In part two I develop a theory of crisis capitalism in conversation with scholars of political science and political economy. Crisis, from this perspective, represents an opportunity through which unpopular reforms could be promoted under the language of necessity. With this theoretical framework in place, part three critically examines five recent changes that are relevant to learning and teaching: job losses and casualization; cuts to programs; finding new markets for international students; online teaching; and changes to assessment.
While not denying the scale of the challenge that confronts higher education, I argue that university leaders are using the COVID-19 pandemic as a crisis to push through unpopular reforms. I substantiate this argument by comparing statements prior and during the pandemic and through a reading of how leaders have used the language of necessity. Ultimately, I concluded that Rahm Emanuel’s dictum that one should ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ is the governing mantra in universities today and will have a profound impact on learning and teaching for decades to come.
