Toxic campus culture needs to be tackled

The evidence coming out of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion this week, where Jewish students and academics at Australian universities have given evidence of being at the receiving end of hostile and at times vicious behaviour, should not come as a surprise.

Some students have described how, after being identified as Jewish by their clothing or ornamental symbols, or by participating in Jewish cultural or religious events, they have been harangued, vilified, doxed, threatened and spat at, to the point where many have chosen to do their courses online or to change universities.

Two parliamentary inquiries in 2024 and 2025, internal inquiries conducted by individual universities and a scathing assessment of antisemitism at Australian universities by Emeritus Professor Craven AO, a constitutional lawyer and former vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, have all told a similar story.

Some universities have already taken steps to address these problems, and the Federal Minister for Education has announced measures to strengthen regulatory oversight of the sector.

Yet the problems persist, and the reason is not hard to fathom. Incidents of antisemitism on campus cannot properly be understood, let alone dealt with, as individual events. They are part of a pattern, and their effect is cumulative.