Special envoy: Antisemitism at universities ‘systemic’
Segal's submission was informed by interviews with 65 Jewish students, staff and academics at universities and paints a harrowing picture.
“Antisemitic behaviour is not only present on many campuses but is an embedded part of the culture. Universities have not taken appropriate action to denounce and suppress it: it has become systemic.”
That is according to the submission by the government’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, to the Senate Committee looking into a bill to establish a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities.
Segal’s submission was informed by interviews with 65 Jewish students, staff and academics at universities and paints a harrowing picture.
“Jewish students are traumatised and feel isolated and unsafe. They are not participating as they should in university life,” it reads. “They have been told by their university administration to stay home for their own safety. This normalised antisemitism is incredibly dangerous to our society.”
Segal contends that the failure of universities to take appropriate action is a key reason for a judicial inquiry, as well as “the need to thoroughly investigate foreign funding designed to undermine universities’ mission and values”.
Segal calls for “urgent action” to address antisemitism on campuses, writing “the situation on campuses cannot just be left to the recommendations of a judicial inquiry, however necessary that might be.”
Her recommendations for immediate measures include that universities work with her to adopt best practice on countering antisemitism, including for them to “introduce policies that give them the ability to discipline people whose conduct is antisemitic”.
She calls for the government to establish a national student ombudsman to handle complaints regarding racism, including antisemitism (a position that education minister Jason Clare this week announced will be legislated) and a national database and hotline of racist incidents and discourse.
Regarding the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), she writes that the government should consider “whether TEQSA needs greater powers to ensure that tertiary institutions comply with threshold standards and the law”.
The submission also calls for training for university leadership, staff, governance and students to combat antisemitism.
Segal recommends that “all universities that have not yet adopted the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Association] working definition work with the Special Envoy’s office to adopt a working definition of antisemitism”.
However, she acknowledges, “Whatever the definition adopted, if the culture of a university is endemically antisemitic, a definition will not alone remedy the issue. Nevertheless, I would like to work with the universities in a good faith exploration of a useful definition of antisemitism, perhaps based on the IHRA working definition but Australianised.”
Segal was appointed to the role of special envoy on July 9 to advise the government on countering antisemitism in Australia, and this is her first submission to the Parliament.
The Senate Committee received 459 submissions, including submissions from the Australasian Union of Jewish Students and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry which both supported a judicial inquiry.
Read the submissions: aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/AntisemitismBill/Submissions
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