Students and staff at universities across Sydney are facing a wave of repression for pro-Palestine political views and activism. In what students are describing as a “new McCarthyism”, a slew of vexatious disciplinary proceedings and other threats are being used to intimidate and silence anyone who wishes to speak out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Yasmine Johnson, a Jewish student and co-convenor of Students for Palestine at the University of Sydney, is being subjected to disciplinary proceedings which could result in her suspension, simply for organising a pro-Palestine protest at the university, which allegedly breached the University’s new Campus Access Policy (CAP) 2024. Other students are facing similar proceedings.
Defenders of Israels genocide in Gaza have lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission as the first step in a class-action lawsuit targeting the University of Sydney and two of its academic staff, including Senior Lecturer in English and writing, Nick Riemer, on the spurious grounds that criticism of Zionism amounts to antisemitism and racial vilification.
University of New South Wales (UNSW) recently hauled Jewish anti-Zionist and Honorary Associate Professor Peter Slezak into a meeting with a faculty Dean, following pro-Palestine comments made at a student general meeting on campus.
UNSW students meanwhile have had their ‘Students for Palestine’ student society suspended by the University. Other students say that their peers are facing secretive disciplinary proceedings for their pro-Palestine activism that could result in suspensions and expulsions.
At WSU, two students faced arrests by NSW police for protesting the universities’ complicity in supporting Israel’s actions in Gaza, with the arrests taking place during a peaceful campus demonstration that was met with a heavy-handed police response.
At UTS, students were told that the Vice Chancellor had personally banned a leaflet they were distributing because it included the word “genocide”, describing Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Yasmine Johnson:
“As a Jewish student, the idea that I could be suspended for taking a stand against a genocide is incomprehensible. The “threat to student safety” isn’t the protest I organised, it’s USyd’s ties to weapons companies arming the killing in Gaza.”
Nick Riemer, Sydney University:
“The attack on me and my colleague John Keane is a nonsensical attempt to silence us and other Palestine advocates from speaking out against the obscenity of Israel’s crimes. The complainants are profoundly deluded if they imagine they will succeed even for a moment. In aiming to weaponise the Racial Discrimination Act against us, they are working to eliminate opposition in Australia to Netanyahu’s current genocide.”
Kobi Shetty MP and NSW Greens Democracy spokesperson:
“The crackdown on protests that we are seeing play out at Sydney Uni and other campuses represents an alarming shift towards authoritarianism. In NSW we’re witnessing a coordinated effort to undermine the right to protest, with a slew of anti-protest laws and recent court challenges to block peaceful protests from going ahead. These attacks are now filtering down into our universities.
“As people become increasingly concerned about our government’s inaction on issues like climate change, and the genocide in Gaza, it’s essential that they have the right to express dissent and speak out. Peaceful protest is a valid way for people to hold decision makers to account – whether that’s the government of the day or universities, that play an important role in social movements. Peaceful protest is an integral part of a functioning democracy, and it must be protected.”
Peter Slezak, Honorary Professor of Philosophy at University of NSW:
“As in an earlier generation during the Vietnam War, students have taken up the struggle when our leaders, politicians and media and their universities have failed to uphold human rights, international law – and justice. We are facing one of the great moral tests of our time and the students’ courage and decency is in stark contrast with the lameness, and cowardice of our leaders and university managers. In particular, it is to desecrate the memory of the victims of real antisemitism when it is weaponized to silence students’ and others’ justified criticism of Israel’s crimes.”