Universities concede failures on antisemitism

Vice-chancellors from five of Australia’s leading universities conceded over three days of evidence in Melbourne last week that Jewish students and staff had been left feeling unsafe on campus, acknowledging gaps in complaints systems, training and community engagement even as they pointed to post-October 7 reforms.

Australian National University interim vice-chancellor Professor Rebekah Brown delivered the week’s most direct acknowledgment, apologising under cross-examination for failures in how the university handled its encampment, the longest-running in the country.

“All Jewish students and staff and their colleagues and friends, in fact, all students and staff, have an absolute right to feel safe, respected, and heard on our campus, and I’m sorry that they didn’t,” Brown said. “I’ve committed in my role, as long as I am the interim vice-chancellor, to do better.”

Brown accepted the university had been too slow to act and that its adopted definition of antisemitism had still not been embedded in conduct policies, more than four months after the ANU Council endorsed it. ANU acting provost Professor Joan Leach, giving separate evidence, conceded the university’s disclosure tool had no antisemitism category and that it had no restorative practices arising from the encampment protests.

A recurring theme was the gap between adopting antisemitism definitions and putting them into practice. UNSW vice-chancellor Professor Attila Brungs conceded his institution had been operating with three competing definitions and committed to consolidating them. University of Melbourne interim vice-chancellor Professor Glyn Davis rejected the characterisation that IHRA adoption at his institution was merely symbolic, but accepted it needed to be more clearly drawn into policy.