AUJS meets with Education Minister
Key AUJS student leaders have met with Federal Education Minister Jason Clare and Labor MP Josh Burns to address the troubling escalation of antisemitism on university campuses nationwide over the past seven months.
Jason Clare
During the meeting, students shared harrowing experiences, highlighting countless instances of overt discrimination, intimidation, exclusion, bullying, and harassment faced by Jewish students.
In a statement, AUJS pointed out: “In July 2023, we warned the Minister and university leadership about rising antisemitism following the release of the Jewish University Experience Survey. Despite assurances these concerns would be addressed, Jewish students have seen no evidence of any decisive action by universities or government. As a result, Jewish students are significantly less safe than a year ago.
We emphasised to the Minister that we support peaceful protests on campus, which is a fundamental right. However, we demanded clear red lines to address rising antisemitism, including clear guidance that hate speech must not be tolerated on campuses and that nefarious non-student actors must be kept off campus.
We made it clear that the AUJS is of the view that phrases that promote violence and hate and are widely and reasonably perceived as threatening to Jewish students clearly constitute hate speech and vilification. We share the Prime Minister’s view that the chant “from the river to the sea” is an extremely violent statement that has no place on Australia’s streets or university campuses. This extends to other violent and hateful speech, such as ‘globalise the Intifada’, open calls of support for Hamas, as well as disparaging use of the term Zionist and calls for ‘Zionists to get off campus’.
We raised these concerns directly with the Minister and called on him to explicitly call out these offensive statements as antisemitic and examples of hate speech. We also requested the Minister urgently bring University leadership together to enforce existing policies that are meant to protect all students.
Minister Clare expressed solidarity with affected Jewish students, reaffirming the government’s commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of every individual within the university system. The Minister committed to working closely with AUJS on an ongoing basis and centring Jewish voices in a national response to urgently address the rise in antisemitism, vilification and harassment at Australian universities.
AUJS president Noah Levan said: “Minister Clare and university leadership must urgently and definitively implement measures to combat this surge of vilification and hatred on our campuses.
In order to uphold the rights of Jewish students, universities must decisively enforce their policies to bring an end to this wave of hate speech and racial vilification. Praising terrorist organisations, and chanting for ‘intifada’- which is a call for violence – has absolutely no place at an Australian university campus.
Our university leaders must not equivocate – if they’re bulldozed by a bunch of full-time activists and non-students, that will seriously damage the reputation of our university sector. “
