In the early 2000s, anatomist Rita Hardiman landed her first permanent academic job and inherited a dark office in the basement of the University of Melbourne¡¯s medical building. An adjoining room was locked, and nobody seemed to have the key. She fantasised that it contained a bathroom or even a ¡°cosy hideaway¡±.

Hardiman spent weeks asking colleagues to try their keys in the door. Finally, somebody managed to unlock it, revealing a ¡°cramped and gloomy¡± room stacked with plaster casts and human skulls ¨C ¡°not unusual¡± items for a university anatomy department.

The ¡°enormity¡± of the discovery dawned after Hardiman started cataloguing the contents. One skull contained a hand-drawn map of a rural property with a cross indicating where it had been exhumed. Writing on another skull suggested it belonged to a revered Pacific warrior whose descendants had been searching for his remains since 1933.

Hardiman had stumbled on the collection of Richard Berry, an early 20th-century anatomy professor now regarded as Australia¡¯s most influential eugenicist. Berry claimed that his analysis of skull measurements proved that Aboriginal men¡¯s brains were equivalent to those of 13-year-old white boys ¨C findings that contributed to his public advocacy for the sterilisation and execution of the ¡°feeble minded¡±.

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Respect for Berry¡¯s work waned in the decades following his 1929 return to England. But he was credited with assembling ¡°the best collection of Aboriginal skeletons in the world¡±, even after legislators restricted the display of human body parts.

In the mid-1980s, legal proceedings by Aboriginal elder Jim Berg forced the repatriation of Melbourne¡¯s Aboriginal remains. The university agreed to hand over the Berry Collection and was granted a two-month extension. ¡°Ultimately the collection remained at the university for a further two decades¡±, a reveals. ¡°At least one key member of staff¡­didn¡¯t want the Berry Collection to leave.¡±

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The book is the second volume of the university¡¯s introspective look at its questionable past ¨C a now 1,000-plus page colossus entitled Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A history of indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne. While the first volume exposed a tradition of robbery ¨C of graves and of unacknowledged traditional knowledge ¨C the new tome depicts a change of mindset from the 1950s.

But change proved slow, as demonstrated by the university¡¯s grudging hand-back of human remains and its glacial embrace of Aboriginal students. Fifteen years separated the conferral of qualifications to Melbourne¡¯s first indigenous graduate in 1959 and the next in 1974 ¨C demonstrating just how few Aboriginal people saw value in higher education for themselves or their communities, according to co-author James Waghorne.

The book reflects the scale of the ¡°entrenched, multigenerational disadvantage¡± that could never be surmounted by higher education alone, said Waghorne, the university¡¯s historian. Abschol, an indigenous scholarship scheme, was initiated by students in 1951 but they quickly realised that ¡°just having scholarships wasn¡¯t going to solve the problem. You needed to encourage people to stay on at school. You needed to connect with communities. It¡¯s a much bigger problem than just opening gates.¡±

But the gradual emergence of indigenous leaders ¨C in scholarship, research, collaboration and the upper echelons of administration ¨C helped transform the university from an institution that ¡°had excluded and dehumanised indigenous Australians¡± into ¡°one that has accelerated their inclusion and success¡±.

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Some indigenous graduates stayed or returned ¡°to create original knowledge and innovative programmes¡±, co-author Marcia Langton, Melbourne¡¯s foundation chair of Australian indigenous studies, writes in the book¡¯s concluding chapter. ¡°Their voices were heard, and university commitments to support their endeavours have contributed to nation building initiatives.¡±

A similar project at the University of Edinburgh, exposing its history as a ¡°haven¡± for white supremacists that had profited from slavery, was criticised for overlooking contemporary deals with Chinese and Russian interests. Other critics say universities should not waste their efforts on historical navel-gazing exercises.

Waghorne said Melbourne¡¯s project was about ¡°righting wrongs¡±, from the ¡°racist underpinning¡± of bygone research to the tolerance of racism in contemporary classroom jokes. ¡°It brings it into the light¡­and allows the university to look itself in the face and say, ¡®how do we avoid this in the future?¡¯.

¡°What this project has been about, throughout, is trying to understand the university better. Universities are such complex institutions. Their history is so multifaceted, [with] public influence¡­across so many areas.¡±

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He said the first volume was in reading lists and syllabuses and had spawned reading groups where staff gathered to discuss and criticise the chapters. ¡°Students respond to it¡­because it¡¯s about the place they are at. It invites that conversation.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com