LA TROBE University political scientist Robert Manne has attacked Sydney University Vice-Chancellor Gavin Brown for his backing of the new US Studies Centre.

The Centre, funded by two $25 million grants from the Howard Government and the American Australian Association (AAA), as well as $10 million from the NSW Government, is designed to "research, debate and create new knowledge on American political, economic, social and cultural issues."

But the AAA will exert undue influence over research, undermining academic freedom. The AAA controls half of the Centre's Board of Directors and its funding endowment.

Established in 1948, the AAA is associated with Rupert Murdoch's News Limited.

Murdoch pushed for the Centre's establishment after last year complaining that Australians were becoming "anti-American".

According to Robert Manne, there "was not the slightest attempt to disguise the fact that the centre would be seen and judged and funded according to its usefulness and loyalty both in supporting the general foreign policy agenda of the government and inprosecuting the pro-American side of the culture war."

"There was not the slightest pretence that the centre enjoyed academic freedom as over the past century or longer that idea has been understood."Sydney University's Anti-War Action Group is campaigning against the use of the Centre to undermine academic freedom.

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