QUT race debate not antisemitic, despite damaging fallout: review

A review into a satirical race debate at the Queensland University of Technology that sparked media outrage has cast a shadow over the future of one of the university’s specialist research institutes.

The review was commissioned in February to look into the anti-racism event organised by the Carumba Institute, which focuses on First Nations research and education at QUT’s two Brisbane campuses.

Under its six recommendations, released on Wednesday, the university’s governing council was urged to “consider and define the role and function and the leadership” of the institute, and more closely supervise its public events.

QUT Vice-Chancellor Margaret Sheil said the university accepted the independent review’s six recommendations.

The institute’s January symposium on anti-racist research made headlines after one audience member leaked recordings and presentation slides from the satirical “Greatest Race Debate”.

While on stage, writer and artist Lorna Munro, a Wiradjuri and Gamilaroi woman, showed slides calling on the audience to “throat punch a racist”.

Jewish Council of Australia chair Sarah Schwartz presented a checklist of characteristics that she said were being used to weaponise Jewish identity by political leaders, in a slide headlined “Dutton’s Jew”.

The review found these slides and the speakers’ remarks were not antisemitic or offensive “to those actually present”, and should be considered within the full context of the event.

It found Munro’s presentation, “while provocative in tone, was clearly satirical in nature”, while Schwartz’s was intended as a criticism of certain political leaders, and not Jewish people themselves.

However, the review found the media coverage of the debate, and the public responses that followed, had damaged QUT’s reputation.

“Administrators of universities must determine, on any given situation, the balance between the appropriate exercise of the right to freedom of speech and academic intellectual freedom, and conduct that is otherwise appropriately to be limited,” the review read.

QUT has begun addressing some of the recommendations, including increased control of the Carumba Institute.Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt

It recommended more institutional scrutiny of all events held on campus or organised or supervised by QUT.

It also urged the university to emphasise “the proper restrictions that are placed on the expression of freedom of speech and academic intellectual freedom”, and the importance of civility and respect.

Training programs for its workers and increased awareness of the definition of antisemitism in student and staff bodies were also put forward as recommendations.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Sheil said she was grateful for the review, and the university would accept all of its recommendations.

“It is vital that universities remain a place where diverse perspectives can be explored, challenged and better understood, however it is equally essential that these discussions are undertaken in a way that is respectful and avoids vilification or discrimination,” Sheil said.

She added QUT had already begun addressing some of the recommendations, including increased control of the Carumba Institute and adoption of Universities Australia’s agreed working definition of combating antisemitism in messaging to its students and staff.

“Antisemitism, or any other form of racism or discrimination, has no place in a university or the
broader community,” Sheil said.

The university said any matters relating to individual staff conduct had been addressed internally.

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