‘New Jim Crow’: Sydney uni slammed over plan to ‘segregate’ Jewish students during Palestine protest

A leading Australian university proposed providing a separate entrance for exams to “Jewish students” to avoid a pro-Palestine encampment.

The University of Sydney proposed providing a separate entrance to exams “to ensure that Jewish students” could avoid a pro-Palestine encampment in what a Jewish leader has described as “segregation” and a “new Jim Crow”.

Emails obtained under a Government Information Public Access (GIPA) application shed new light on the university’s rolling response to the pro-Palestine encampment, which took over the campus for almost two months last year.

In an email on May 14, 2024 titled “Student encampment planning #20”, USYD’s Associate Director of Risk Strategy and Operations detailed discussions from the university’s midday meetings about the exam period.

“(The exam) should go ahead in the MacLaurin Hall and the Great Hall but we need to be clear of our expectations and that it would be counter-productive for both our students and the protest itself for them to disrupt exam activities,” the minutes stated.

“Mitigations include installing the large electronic signs (big and visible) stating our expectations and ensure that Jewish students have ways to avoid the encampment

when gaining entry to exams (see actions).

“If there is disruption we need to manage this through our misconduct/consequence framework and through contingency planning (e.g. special consideration and a new exam in the replacement exam period) (see actions).”

The University of Sydney proposed providing a separate entrance to exams ‘to ensure that Jewish students’ could avoid a pro-Palestine encampment. Picture: NewsWire / Max Mason-Hubers

Further actions were detailed and assigned to various staff, including communication to student groups, discussion of “safe spaces for students and staff” – including exam spaces – and “contingency planning processes offline”.

Jack Pinczewski, a board member at the Great Synagogue in Sydney, submitted in a personal capacity to a state parliament inquiry into anti-Semitism in NSW – the first session of which was held in Sydney this week – that the university “took the view that to separate Jewish students from their peers was the most effective way of ensuring their safety”.

“Despite their good intentions – to protect Jewish students – that university executives contemplated separate entries for Jewish students to exam rooms is an impossibly shameful racist enterprise,” Mr Pinczewski said.

“As a society, would we accept separate entries to buildings for Asian or Aboriginal students? We would not.

“We acknowledge that notions of ‘separate but equal’ is not equality at all. What university executives were engaged in through this process was, likely inadvertently, a new form of Jim Crow,” he added, referring to the US laws and practices that segregated black people from whites.

Great Synagogue board member Jack Pinczewski with Great Synagogue chief minister and rabbi Benjamin Elton at the inquiry into anti-Semitism in NSW. Picture: NewsWire / John Appleyard

It was not immediately clear to what extent the plans were enacted, though the proposals were defended by a university spokesperson who said there was “no suggestion (the access points) were intended for a select group of students”.

“Tent-based protest camps were a new phenomenon for Sydney and other universities around the world, and we worked hard to ensure our campus remained peaceful, our community safe, and our teaching and research could continue uninterrupted,” the spokesperson said.

“During the exam period we implemented a number of measures to safeguard both the wellbeing of our students and the academic integrity of our assessments.

“These included offering different access options for all students or staff wishing to avoid the encampment, and we installed electronic signage where exams were taking place to remind members of the encampment that disruptions would not be tolerated.

“The different access points offered were available for anyone wishing to use them, there was no suggestion they were intended for a select group of students.”

Pro-Palestine activism and the perceived threat to Jewish students has been a persistent challenge for universities since October 7, 2023, with regular protests taking place on campuses in the years since.

Macquarie University announced earlier this year it was opening a new safe room for Jewish students reporting feeling unsafe at the Macquarie Park campus.

The room is accessed by a swipe card was reportedly requested by the NSW branch of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students.

Mr Pinczewski accused USYD of having “again shirked accountability for their failure to keep Jewish students and staff safe”.

A Pro-Palestinian rally at The University of Sydney. Picture: NewsWire / David Swift

“Their denial of what exists in black and white – contemporaneous documents showing senior university executives were set on segregating Jewish students from their peers – calls into question their commitments to the Jewish community since October last year,” he said.

“As long as attitudes like this persist, one can but wonder if the university’s apologies really mean anything at all.

“The university should be called before the Legislative Council committee inquiring into anti-Semitism to account for themselves.”

USYD’s scramble to respond to ‘unprecedented’ crisis

The emails obtained under the GIPA application reveal the wide-reaching but sometimes frantic response The University of Sydney and its staff took to what was an unprecedented protest on its campus, including damage to the quadrangle and counter-protests.

Staff kept diligent records of incidents, and corresponded among departments ahead of time about potential protest and counter-protest activity, including when the right-wing Australian Jewish Association attended the site.

“Political differences aside, the AJA is planning to come to openly antagonise the situation,” an email from an unknown sender to campus security stated on May 2.

“I am unsure if non-student and staff groups are allowed on campus in order to protest, but Campus Security, and the police, need to be ready for such an event.”

In an email dated May 2, meeting minutes stated that staff had agreed that “should police intervene” in the protest, the “priority should be on de-escalating violence”.

Pro-Israel protesters also visited the encampment. Picture: NewsWire / David Swift

The school’s social media teams also provided updates to staff on what was being posted online, including from the AJA and mainstream media.

In a “wellbeing update” dated May 17, staff noted that “Muslim protesters” reported “feeling profiled” when trying to enter the library.

“Sarah reiterated to protective services staff that they can’t just pick out certain people for screening,” the update stated.

“Reported instances female SUMSA students were being sworn at around campus (particularly when close to roads).”

Questions were also raised in an email chain that included the vice-chancellor about whether face coverings contravened university policy.

Following the end of the encampment in June 2024, the university introduced a new Campus Access Policy “designed to better safeguard the wellbeing of our students and staff while ensuring free speech on campus, and are reviewing and updating our relevant policies and processes”.

The policy, which followed an independent review into the university’s policies and procedures, made several changes, including a “New Civility Rule” requiring speakers at the university to “make the meaning of contested words and phrases clear”.

NSW Council for Civil Liberties chief executive Tim Roberts warned that USYD had “shown a tendency to overreact and, in doing so, undermined both the ideals of open free debate in a university” and were “taking a position where they’re restricting conversations”.

“If you specifically single out students, a group of students in the response, what you only seek to do is further embolden sort of divisions and the divisive aspect of debates, as opposed as coming at it from a human rights perspective,” Mr Roberts said.

In the statement, the USYD spokesperson said the university remained “absolutely committed to freedom of speech and academic freedom with zero tolerance for any form of racism, threats to safety, hate speech, intimidation, threatening speech, bullying or unlawful harassment, including anti-Semitic or Islamophobic language or behaviour”.

The university also instituted changes to its campus security set-up, including the installation of 50 additional CCTV cameras.

It also pledged to engage with the Jewish student leadership and with the Sydney Jewish Museum and has five further changes, including about social media use, pending.

Originally published as ‘New Jim Crow’: Sydney uni slammed over plan to ‘segregate’ Jewish students during Palestine protest