Is Margaret Sheil our version of Claudine Gay? The QUT vice-chancellor has a few things in common with the former president of Harvard University.
Both women are keen on diversity – Gay was a diversity pick to lead the Ivy League university. Sheil famously removed “merit” from hiring practices at QUT. As university leaders, both responded poorly to anti-Semitism on their campuses.
Some important things set the women apart.
Unlike Gay, there are no suggestions of plagiarism about Sheil’s academic work.
Unlike Sheil, Gay faced parliamentary grilling about her leadership when anti-Semitism ran rife at her university.
Gay’s demise came after her response to a simple hypothetical question asked by New York Republican Elise Stefanik during congressional hearings last year: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules on bullying and harassment?”
Apparently tone deaf to the moral imperative to unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism, Gay’s response revealed what happens when left-wing ideology controls technocrats.
“The rules around bullying and harassment are quite specific and if the context in which that language is used amounts to bullying and harassment, then we take, we take action against it,” she said.
A simple “yes” may have saved Gay from the ignominy of enjoying the shortest tenure in history as Harvard president.
The QUT vice-chancellor hasn’t yet appeared before a parliamentary inquiry. But, like Gay, she should be made to do so.
Given that taxpayers fund our universities, VCs are accountable to us. If university leaders are not capable of effective leadership during the vicious rise in anti-Semitism in this country, they should choose a different role. Like Gay, perhaps return to teaching,
The “anti-racism” seminar at QUT last month – its formal title was “Unifying Anti-Racist Research and Action” – had a distinct whiff of that infamous UN Conference on Racism, Racial Intolerance, Xenophobia and/or Related Intolerance in Durban more than 20 years ago.
That UN gabfest succeeded only in inflaming large doses of racism, racial intolerance, xenophobia and/or related intolerance – against the Jews and the West. To call that shindig a debacle is an understatement.
Similarly, QUT’s own debacle has done little towards “unifying anti-racism”.
The symposium was headlined by a “Great Race Debate” that featured a slide on stage about “Dutton’s Jew”. The large screen depicted a superhero with “DJ” on their chest who “hates Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims … thinks anti-Semitism is the only form of racism … and is willing to hug Dutton for photo ops”.
The speaker, left-wing Jewish Council of Australia boss Sarah Schwartz, said afterwards she was referring “to the way that Peter Dutton conceives of Jewish people and uses us as political footballs to push his own agenda, not actual Jewish people”. Many saw the cartoon as pouring fuel on the bonfire of anti-Semitism raging across this nation.
The next day, at the closing session, delegates stood and shouted “shame”. Not shame over the cartoon. Shame that the cartoon was leaked to the media.
In a recording that later emerged, Carumba Institute executive director Chelsea Watego was heard berating the leaker. A female voice in the audience shouted: “Punch him (the leaker) in the throat.” Sheil apologised for the “hurt and offence”. The QUT boss said all conference material would go to an inquiry to be headed by a lawyer or a retired judge. “I would take advice from the review,” Sheil said.
Yawn. Don’t fob it off to a review. Throw on a pair of Nikes, vice-chancellor, and Just Do It! Yourself. A university leader ought to denounce this as anti-Semitism. Condemn the lack of intellectual diversity too. And enforce the QUT code of conduct about respecting other viewpoints, which applies to all staff, other academic or research collaborators, and anyone invited on to the campus.
Sheil should personally peruse QUT’s many policies decreed while she’s been VC.
Granted, there are more words devoted to “diversity” “equity” and “inclusion” in myriad policies. But surely there are rules slapping consequences on those who intimidate and mock Jews. To say nothing of threatening to punch someone in the throat.
Sheil’s response has been extracted from the technocrat playbook: deflect and delay action with a review. It echoed comments by Sydney University vice-chancellor Mark Scott, who told a Senate committee the university was also establishing a review.
Scott’s opening statement to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee in September mentioned the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia. He said this is “reflected on university campuses, including the University of Sydney”.
Scott is a thoroughly decent man. But this is a cop-out. VCs are rarely raging radicals. But many are raging weaklings. More technocrat than university leader, their cowardice in the face of radicals and ideologues creates the perfect milieu for anti-Semitism to thrive.
Vice-chancellors should have to front a national inquiry – parliamentary or otherwise – to explain why anti-Semitism at their universities has become normalised. They should be asked to explain their understanding of free speech and academic freedom. They will likely blather about its importance and hide behind it.
I’ve been writing about the central role free speech plays in a functioning democracy.
Jews, along with everyone else, will confront ideas on campus and beyond that hurt and offend them. Alas, we’re not talking about free speech here. If only we were.
Instead, the biggest cause of anti-Semitism on campus is the consistent lack of intellectual diversity at our biggest universities, especially those where VCs are on million-dollar salary packages. Associate Professor Yoni Nazarathy, a lecturer at the University of Queensland, was in the audience at QUT’s anti-racism symposium. Hurt and humiliated by the audience shouting “shame”, Nazarathy lamented the “lack of acknowledgment of what mainstream Jews are going through in Australia today”.
How does it come to pass that a symposium on anti-racism and anti-Semitism did not make space for a discussion of what many Jews are facing in Australia today? And worse, became a platform for stoking anti-Semitism?
The QUT debacle is more evidence universities are hostile places for people with views that differ from the university zeitgeist.
When speech travels in one direction, coalescing around a certain set of ideas – whether it’s about the Israel-Hamas war, or anti-racism, or any other issue – that one-way street is anathema to free speech.
Making space at universities for one set of views is not free speech: it’s indoctrination. At QUT, left-wing ideologues were given an institutional boost by Sheil in 2023, when she told staff the university is “moving away from the merit principle”. Sheil told ABC radio the new “more inclusive suitability assessment” would consider factors such as gender and ethnic diversity. Diversity of background. Tick. Diversity of thought. Not so much.
If academics and university administrators were serious about free speech, they would, as a priority, champion diversity of opinion.
Instead of ensuring intellectual rigour, they have fallen lock, stock and barrel for the stuff that pleases the social engineers.
The other problem with faint-hearted VCs is that they hide behind the law.
Anti-Semitism is not illegal. Nor should it be unless it incites violence.
A university leader should understand the difference between law and morality in a civilised society. If you’re a university leader, consequences should attach to anti-Semitism irrespective of its legality because anti-Semitism, especially when it goes unchallenged, will undermine the intellectual foundations of a university – and breed ignorant, even hateful, people.
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