VC backs ideal of a university

University leaders talk a big game about freedom of speech and respect for scholarship, but in 2024 some lost control of their campus to anti-Semitic zealots. It is not going to happen at the University of Melbourne now Emma Johnston is in charge. This week, in one of her first acts as vice-chancellor, Professor Johnston issued new rules to ensure that academe will prevail over anarchy. The university is “a place where the thoughtful exchange of divergent views may occur in a civil and peaceful manner, and which respects the right to freedom of speech and expression and the right to assembly to engage in peaceful protest”, she said. And to make sure that is what happens, her regulations detail what can and cannot occur.

Demonstrations must be outdoors. (In 2024, buildings at the university’s Parkville campus were occupied.) Protests cannot undermine staff and students participating in the university. (Jews were threatened and intimidated.) And the university will “act in the interests” of everybody “engaging in university activities or using university premises”. Lest anybody mistake Professor Johnston’s intent, students breaching the rule may have their enrolment cancelled and staff could face a serious misconduct charge – about the only way university employees can be sacked.

Professor Johnston follows in the honoured footsteps of academics who have stood up for universities as places of reasoned debate and a universal love of learning. Such as University of Queensland chancellor Peter Varghese and vice-chancellor Deborah Terry, who allowed freedom of speech but firmly suggested when it was time for pro-Palestinian protesters to go lest they disrupt exams. Such as Western Sydney University chancellor Jennifer Westacott, who wrote in this newspaper on Australia Day, “turning a blind eye to one type of hatred unleashes a culture of hatred or opens the door to other hatreds such as Islamophobia, homophobia and racism in all its forms. So, we must reject anti- Semitism. We must reject hate. My university sector … must be at the forefront of these actions.” And such as University of Melbourne associate provost Marcia Langton, who decries anti-Semitism, writing: “Jewish Australians are entitled to the same standards of community safety that we all expect, and which apply to all Australians of any ethnicity. No one is an exception, no group is an exception; not Jews, not Muslims.”

Their leadership is in stark contrast to the failures of many managements in 2024 when universities appeared powerless to remove protesters camping in support of the Palestinian cause and making Jews fear for their safety. It appears they still do at Macquarie University, which has created “a safe space” for Jewish students – effectively conceding the university cannot maintain order. And it makes a change from universities ducking decency by claiming that without a legal definition of anti-Semitism they can do nothing about flagrant abuse and intimidation. It took more than a year but peak body Universities Australia has finally adopted a definition that can be used to deal with outright anti-Semitism.

Professor Johnston has gone further. She is defending the ideal of the university, and right now it needs defending. In the desperate need to protect Jews in Australia from violence and vitriol on campus we have lost sight of how intolerant of dissent university communities have become, especially of anybody who dares dispute current claims that as a “settler society” Israel (and come to that Australia) is intrinsically immoral and should not exist.