Australian Jewish Association calls for federal funds to be withheld from universities that fail to address anti-Semitism

A leading Jewish organisation has called for federal funding to be withheld from universities that fail to address anti-Semitism, accusing one in Sydney of being “perhaps the worst in the country”.

A leading Jewish organisation has called for the federal government to withhold funding from universities that fail to address anti-Semitism, following a spate of incidents targeting Jewish students on Sydney tertiary campuses.

The Australian Jewish Association is pushing for universities to bolster efforts to combat anti-Semitism following reports of Jewish students feeling “terrified to attend campuses” and being bullied because of their religious identities.

Robert Gregory, chair of the Australian Jewish Association, has raised particular concern over reports of anti-Semitism at the University of Sydney, where a string of pro-Palestine encampments were held on campus lawns earlier this year.

He said the university was “perhaps the worst university in the country” for reports of harassment targeting Jewish students.
Mr Gregory also said some academics had resigned from the university “due to the toxic anti-Semitic culture and failure of administration to take effective action”.

A pro-Gaza and Palestine encampment on the lawns of Sydney University this year.

“We saw for ourselves how extremists in a tent ‘encampment’, had been allowed to take over a portion of the university and disrupt the studies of Jewish students,” Mr Gregory said.

“The encampment not only made life difficult for Jewish students, but it also targeted and harassed the wider Jewish community.”

Mr Gregory has made submissions to a current federal parliamentary inquiry into anti-Semitism on university campuses, calling for increased efforts to respond to anti-Semitism, “including the potential of withholding federal funding for universities which don’t take meaningful action to combat anti-Semitism”.

Protesters on the lawns of the University of Sydney earlier this year.

The inquiry has also attracted criticism from Muslim advocacy groups including Muslim Votes Matter, which is seeking to mobilise Muslim Australians before the next federal election.

The organisation said the inquiry’s definition of anti-Semitism “potentially conflates legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitic acts”, and could “suppress free speech and academic freedom”.

The National Tertiary Education Union’s University of Sydney branch has, meanwhile, claimed “there is no anti-Semitism crisis on Australian campuses”.

Tents were set up on the lawn of the University of Sydney earlier this year.

“Universities have been starved of federal funds for decades, a situation which seriously jeopardises their ability to serve their communities as they should,” Nick Riemer, branch president of the union, said in a submission to the inquiry.

“What they need is a sustained financial commitment, not extra regulatory scrutiny aimed at instituting McCarthyist attacks on Palestine supporters and their politics of equality and democracy for all.”

Federal independent MP Allegra Spender, whose electorate takes in suburbs including Bondi, has conducted a survey of students at universities in Sydney, revealing 72 per cent of 167 respondents had experienced anti-Semitism. More than half of incidents occurred at the University of Sydney, University of NSW and University of Technology Sydney.

Robert Gregory, of the Australian Jewish Association.

Students responding to the survey detailed on-campus incidents in which they saw Nazi symbol graffiti, anti-Israel posters reading “from the River to the Sea” and posters that called for a “global Intifada”.

In a submissions to the inquiry, University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott recognised there had been “particular concern about whether the university has adequately supported the safety and wellbeing of Jewish staff and students”.

He said the university had launched measures in response to the encampments, including reviewing the campus access policy which sets out “our expectations for users of our lands, specifying activities that require prior approval and those that are unacceptable at any time”.

Jillian Segal – who was by appointed by the federal government as special envoy to combat anti-Semitism – said anti-Semitism had become an “embedded part” of the culture of universities.

She also said management figures at some universities were in “denial” about the gravity of the situation on campus.

The inquiry has also heard from Jewish students, who have detailed their experiences of anti-Semitism at universities.

One student said: “It feels like I am living in Germany in the 1930s where Jews are once again the scapegoats for every bad situation.”