The radical proposal that could end Sydney Uni’s proud history of rebellion

On a mild Autumn evening, a group of Sydney University students, mostly attached to the Socialist Alternative and left-wing activist groups, set up camp on the institution’s iconic front lawns.

The pro-Palestinian demonstration began off the back of a wave of student protests at US universities and remained a constant presence on campus for almost two months. It led to a bruising year in which Sydney University found itself ground zero for accusations of antisemitism.

Facing pressure to respond, the university commissioned a review into its response to the encampment, to be done by workplace health and safety barrister Bruce Hodgkinson SC. Among his suggestions was a radical proposal designed to enforce a more civil discourse on campus. It was dubbed “The New Civility Rule”.

The novel rule, devised by Hodgkinson, would require staff and students to make their intended meaning known when they used contested phrases or slogans, for example, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. He argues it will allow serious debate while also creating a safe environment for staff and students.

But the rule and broader protest crackdowns have set off a firestorm of criticism. It’s led to claims of the death of activism on campus and an end to the university’s proud history of rebellion. A history that has seen a student Anthony Albanese scale the quadrangle clock tower to protest course cuts, a vice chancellor’s office occupied, sit-ins, bonfires lit and flares released. Others are concerned it could be used to target those it intends to protect.

A new campus reality

The encampment began in April with a few student activists who pitched tents on the lawns, many affiliated with Socialist Alternative-linked group Students for Palestine. Over the next eight weeks, it swelled to more than a hundred tents. Muslim student groups joined the camp as did students from other universities. Far fewer students regularly remained on site overnight.

Some Jewish students, in submissions made to a parliamentary inquiry, reported feeling unsafe and unwelcome on campus as a result of the encampment and felt the university did not support them. They also objected to the practice of “lecture bashing”, where students use the first five minutes of the class, usually with the lecturer’s permission, to make political statements. Commonly, over the past year, these have been about the Gaza war.

One submission from second-year veterinary student Dror Liraz says: “I have suffered the encampment, calls for ‘intifada’ (by students, professors, and politicians on campus), harrowing graffiti and daily harassment from those trying to spread anti-Jewish sentiment.”

Encampment organisers vigorously deny allegations they are antisemitic or made the campus unsafe for Jewish students. They also point to the fact one of the organisers was herself Jewish.

After the end of the encampment in June, during a time when it was under scrutiny for failing to protect Jewish students, Hodgkinson was commissioned by the university to review its policies and processes.

He backed the university’s earlier moves to significantly clamp down on protests and ban encampments or protests in buildings. He also called for an end of the lecture-bashing tradition.

The pro-Palestine encampment at the University of Sydney this year.Credit: Kate Geraghty

The need for civility

But perhaps most significantly, Hodgkinson recommended the university introduce the “New Civility Rule”. This would require anyone “utilising a word or phrase … to identify to the audience the context in which it is used”. His report says that a failure to conduct a lecture, seminar, tutorial or meeting within any of the university’s facilities in accordance with the rule should be recognised as misconduct.

In practice, it would mean someone wanting to use a contested slogan or phrase, such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” or “intifada”, would be obliged to spell out their intended meaning.

The genesis for the proposed rule appears to partly come from a paper written by US rabbi Jill Jacobs and cited by Hodgkinson. In it, she says that the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea ...” is not necessarily antisemitic, depending on the intent.

For example, she says, proponents using the slogan to argue that a free Palestine would also include Jewish citizens in a single democratic state are not being antisemitic “as long as one is sincere about protecting Jews within such a state”.

But she points out that most Jews hear the slogan as a call to expel Jews from Israel. The rabbi says it’s therefore advisable for anyone who does not want to be viewed as antisemitic to avoid the phrase or only use it when there is an opportunity to clarify meaning.

Hodgkinson also pointed to a recent full Federal Court judgment which sided with Sydney University after it sacked an academic who showed students a slide show that superimposed a Nazi swastika on the Israeli flag.

Professor Tim Anderson fought the sacking in court, and in October 2022, Federal Court Justice Thomas Thawley ruled he was exercising his academic freedom. He accepted the lecturer’s argument the swastika graphic was created to encourage critical analysis.

Earlier this year, the full Federal Court overturned this decision in a two-to-one majority.

Hodgkinson says this decision reflects a requirement for a speaker to make their context clear.

“By identifying context, which establishes the legitimacy of their use, the words and phrases could not be understood to have an impermissible meaning. They will not be construed as sexist, bullying, harassment or
racist,” his report says.

Although the report refers to examples of phrases that could be antisemitic, Hodgkinson says the same observations apply to phrases that could be, depending on context, sexist, racist, bullying or Islamophobic.

There does not appear to be any known precedent for the civility rule, and how it would work in practice is up for debate.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-executive director Peter Wertheim backed the proposed rule, but says its enforcement needs to be fleshed out in far more detail if it is to have any chance of being effective.

Sydney University’s governing senate gave its in-principle support for the rule and all other recommendations made by Hodgkinson. Its implementation is now in the hands of vice chancellor Mark Scott and the rest of the executive. Scott has conceded significant work would need to be done before a version is implemented.

“What I hear from Hodgkinson is a call for clarity, for people to be more precise,” he told a parliamentary inquiry last month.

University of Sydney students chained together while protesting against conscription in 1972. Police are using bolt cutters to break the chain and arrest them.Credit: Roderick John Macrae/Fairfax Media

Student politics

Sydney University has long lauded its rich history of student activism, beginning with the 1965 Freedom Ride led by Charles Perkins, highlighting discrimination faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. Long before the encampment, the university was the scene of dramatic sit-ins, the storming of a vice chancellor’s office and the occupation of buildings.

In 1983, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese scaled and occupied the clock tower in the university’s main quadrangle in protest over changes to the political economy course. He was suspended and fined over the incident.

In defending not swiftly shutting down the encampment after it sprung up, Scott pointed to the university’s history of protest as “a part of who we are”. 

But Hodgkinson’s review says these traditions grew up “in a different time” when the university did not have such complex legal obligations. He says there does not appear to be a reason to continue them, particularly in light of media communication methods.

Economics student Angus Fisher is the new president of the SRC of Sydney University.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Student Representative Council (SRC) president Angus Fisher, who is attached to Labor left and participated in the encampment, says the civility rule would stifle political expression, which was already “under attack” after new campus rules were introduced in July. 

He is worried about the independence of the democratically elected SRC, with the review recommending that university-affiliated organisations have their funding cut if they don’t comply with the rule. “That is really scary,” he says. “I also wonder who will be the one to decide what constitutes a contested phrase and effective contextualisation.”

Fisher says the civility rule and campus crackdown amounted to a “huge cultural shift” at the university and believes the institution is at a turning point. “As students, we don’t have massive institutions backing us, so to give us the leveller to actually fight and have a voice, we need our ability to debate and be heard in numbers,” he says.

”I struggle to see how we would have another Freedom Ride under these rules. We won’t have another encampment. We’re not going to be able to climb the clock tower to protest course cuts.”

Hodgkinson’s report singled out an SRC meeting held on August 7, where a motion proposed by a group of Jewish students was shouted down. He says they were not treated with respect or listened to as required by the student charter, and the meeting did not meet the obligation to “disagree well”. “Where instead of respectful debate, a meeting descends into a sea of angry voices … only those responsible for the calling of the meeting are able to bring it back to civility,” he says.

Jewish students protesting against vice chancellor Mark Scott, saying he didn’t do enought to protect them. Credit: Edwina Pickles

The civility rule has been widely panned by academics, who fear their hard-fought rights to freely express themselves are being eroded. And the criticisms are not just coming from people who are part of the pro-Palestinian movement.

Sydney University sociology associate professor Salvatore Babones believes the rule would be “absolutely destructive” and could be abused by those it aims to target. “Bad actors would use pro forma disclaimers to meet the technical requirements of the rule, while well-meaning people would be relentlessly persecuted by bad actors for not issuing disclaimers,” he says.

Babones says it could allow someone to wave a flag depicting an armed man on a paraglider, referencing the October 7 attacks, and claim it symbolises “the defence of hearth and home by freedom-loving peoples”. He argues that a lecturer with good intentions might say something “anodyne” like: “Israel has a right to defend itself”, but because the lecturer did not specify that defence must align with international human rights norms, they could be penalised.

“My point is not that well-meaning lecturers are ultimately going to be punished by the tribunals; it’s that such a rule will inevitably be abused by the very people it is intended to target,” Babones says.

But the proposal has been widely welcomed by Jewish groups, who have been concerned about the safety of Jewish staff and students on university campuses since October 7.

In a statement, directors of the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism (5A) say they are confident the implementation of civility rules will enable the university to foster scholarly debate across ideological divides.

“These measures will ensure that free speech is exercised to its fullest potential – promoting genuine dialogue, as well as protecting against the abuse and weaponisation of free speech as a means to suppress opposing viewpoints and transform universities into war zones dominated by vocal gangs – a scene repeatedly witnessed over the past year,” adjunct associate professor David Knoll, professor Suzanne Rutland and associate professor Efrat Eilam say.

Sydney University media and politics senior lecturer Peter Chen, National Tertiary Education Union branch president, says the organisation was keen to work with the university but had serious concerns about the implementation of the rule.

A university spokeswoman said the institution was “fully committed” to ensuring it is free from any form of discrimination. “This in no way diminishes our commitment to academic freedom or freedom of expression, and we recognise getting this balance right is a collective challenge,” she said.

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