Where are the uni vice chancellors?

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators use a large Palestinian flag to block the doors to Bell Hall.

Australian vice-chancellors have been speaking in platitudes, desperate not to upset anyone. Here is a speech they should give.

We, vice-chancellors who are now trying to manage the pro-Palestinian protests on our university campuses, had this coming. For many years, when it mattered, we squibbed the importance of free speech.

Now, when students side with Hamas, when little children are encouraged and orchestrated to shout “intifada” and “From the river to sea”– both phrases used by terrorists to signal the destruction of the state of Israel – when Jewish students no longer feel safe on campus, we talk a lot about free speech. The chickens are coming home to roost. Chickens is the operative word.

We haven’t taken free speech seriously in the past. We’ve shut down events for apparently controversial speakers for “safety” reasons. Peter Ridd, a celebrated marine biologist, was famously sacked for breaching a code of conduct after he publicly challenged the work of colleagues. Free speech, academic freedom? They didn’t get a look-in then.

Even Malcolm Turnbull couldn’t get through a speech at a university without it being shut down by shouty protesters. We ramble under our breath about free speech when it suits, instead of giving this foundational principle of democracy the full-throttled defence it deserves.

Students who want to be educated, not to mention parents who pay for their kids to get educated at our universities, and taxpayers who fund us, expect us to take free speech seriously always – not just now when we university leaders find ourselves in a bind.

As a vice-chancellor at an Australian university, I am inspired to speak out after reading the weekend address by University of Florida president Ben Sasse. I make no apologies for quoting from his address. When a university leader stands out, it emboldens others to do the same. We need now to speak up for the sake of students who come to university to learn, not to use campus lawns as a platform for performance art.

The more violent American experience is not yet here. Before things get worse, I want our students to understand a few salient points about university life.

But first, I say to other university vice-chancellors, the reason Australians can and do lump Australia’s biggest universities together is that together we have turned our great sandstone universities into homogenous, anti-intellectual blobs. When things have gone wrong, and they have, it’s treated, rightly, as failure across the board.

Peter Ridd

The University of Sydney is no different to the University of Melbourne. The Australian National University is indistinguishable from the University of NSW. The University of Western Australia is a carbon copy of the University of Adelaide. No university leader of the so-called Group of Eight has had the courage to speak up about the ignorance that has flourished on our campuses, right under our noses.

We won’t fall into the trap of using slogans for either side. We won’t tar all student protesters with the same brush by describing these as encampments of hatred.

To be sure, there is extremism and hatred, in pockets, but the deeper problem is the ignorance that we, as CEOs charged with running these once great institutions, have allowed to flourish.

We have stood silent for years while our lecture rooms became breeding grounds for teaching kids – and they are just kids, with minds not yet fully formed – that the whole world must be divided into two camps: Oppressors and The Oppressed. I have used capital letters deliberately.These categories are now fully formed political projects. No nuance is welcome when considering who are the oppressed and who are oppressors. Whether you call this postmodernism, critical race theory, Marxist class struggle or some variant, our universities have become infested, and infected, by academics and students who view the world through prisms of power relationships.

For some the world is a giant mass of racist power structures. Others say the world can be understood only as organised male oppression. Others point to colonialism as the root of all evil.

There is much overlap. And adherents of this share the common belief that shutting down their opponents is an end that justifies more or less any means. They also believe that once you have identified your oppressed group of choice, you can ignore logic and reason in pursuit of their liberation.

People pray at an encampment at University Yard at George Washington University.

You want evidence? Pro-Palestinian protesters on campus have every right to protest against a brutal war in Gaza. But if facts matter, they should also be the biggest critics of Hamas. This terrorist organisation understood, indeed intended, that invading Israel, killing innocent civilians, raping women at a music festival and beheading babies, would lead to a war in Gaza where innocent Palestinians would die, as innocent civilians have done in every war. Hamas uses its own people as human shields. Hamas steals foreign aid intended for Palestinians to enrich its leaders. Hamas keeps its people in a state of poverty as part of its project to call for the destruction of Israel. If students can’t identify Hamas as terrorists, then something has gone terribly wrong with their education – under our watch.

And ask yourself how those who believe in the equality of women, or the rights of LGBTQ people, can demonstrate in support of Hamas? Living in a tent on the university lawn may address the rental crisis temporarily, but what will it do for the poor Palestinians, let alone the Israelis who live with terrorists on their doorstep?

Instead, too many of our students have been trained in ignorance. Those copying Gaza Solidarity encampments on US campuses should be reading what we are reading: students are being manipulated by extremists who are sharing instruction manuals encouraging militancy and violence. At New York universities last week, almost half of those arrested by the NYPD were not university students.

I want our students to think for themselves, to test what they have heard, what they have read, what they think they believe, to read widely and to listen to people they think they disagree with. If academics at our university don’t encourage students to do that, these teachers need to find another job.

Living in a democracy means rights come with responsibilities. The American student, draped in a keffiyeh for cameras, who demanded food and water for protesters who had taken over a building at Columbia University clearly has not studied history. If you are going to be a revolutionary, remember to pack your lunch. We will not facilitate criminal behaviour by sending in Uber Eats.

Members of the Australian Palestinian community shout slogans at the Palestinian Protest Campsite at University of Sydney.

While curing the disease of illiberalism infecting our universities will take time, we will start by treating the symptoms. We have spent too much time worrying about gendered language and other slight offences, and lost sight of what really matters.

As Sasse said, “We’re a university, not a daycare. We don’t coddle emotions, we wrestle with ideas.” As adults, you shouldn’t need written codes of conduct to govern your behaviour on campus. You must now weigh the costs of your decisions and own the consequences. We will defend your rights to free speech and free assembly – but if you cross the line, damage property, hijack buildings or take part in any other prohibited activities, you will be suspended. Those who incite violence will be reported to the police, immediately. We will not tolerate mob rule.

We say this to be clear with you. We mean it. We will hold you responsible for your actions.

We shouldn’t need a written code to explain that a university is committed to free speech and to academic freedom. Yet we do because that’s how far we have lost our way. Students of all backgrounds, cultures and religions should expect to hear things at university that may make them uncomfortable. We must equip students for the real world, where slogans and tent protests won’t get you very far. We need to teach students how to listen, reason, challenge and persuade. These skills will enrich them and the society they step into with their degrees and doctorates. Otherwise, what is the purpose of university?