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The Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry (ECAJ), togeth­er with its affil­i­ate, the Aus­tralasian Union of Jew­ish Stu­dents (AUJS) met with Uni­ver­si­ty Vice Chan­cel­lors from the Group of 8 Uni­ver­si­ties on Thurs­day for an open and frank dis­cus­sion on the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion of unrest on many of their cam­pus­es. The meet­ing was con­vened by the Sec­re­tary of the Com­mon­wealth Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion.

Jil­lian Segal AO, who rep­re­sent­ed the ECAJ in the meet­ing and Noah Loven, Pres­i­dent of AUJS, raised the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of Jew­ish stu­dents and staff who are fac­ing intim­i­da­tion and harass­ment from their peers and out­side agi­ta­tors. Ms Segal stressed the impor­tance of uni­ver­si­ties uphold­ing their respec­tive codes of con­duct and bring­ing dis­ci­pli­nary action against those found to be in breach.

The VCs assured the ECAJ the sit­u­a­tion on each cam­pus is receiv­ing seri­ous atten­tion at the high­est lev­el, is mon­i­tored and reviewed dai­ly and sig­nif­i­cant effort and impor­tance is being placed on keep­ing all stu­dents and staff safe. Indeed, a num­ber of the uni­ver­si­ties are cur­rent­ly tak­ing dis­ci­pli­nary action against indi­vid­u­als who have breached their codes of con­duct.

Ms Segal said that the ECAJ will con­tin­ue its dia­logue with the Vice Chan­cel­lors and togeth­er with the uni­ver­si­ties, she urged stu­dents and staff who wit­ness or expe­ri­ence harass­ment, abuse or oth­er unac­cept­able con­duct to imme­di­ate­ly report this to the uni­ver­si­ties so that action may be tak­en.

The ECAJ also wel­comed remarks today by the Prime Min­is­ter that anti­semitism has no place in our coun­try and Jew­ish stu­dents must feel safe at their uni­ver­si­ties.

Ms Segal said, “the ECAJ and AUJS, as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive bod­ies of the com­mu­ni­ty and Jew­ish stu­dents, will con­tin­ue to work with the gov­ern­ment and uni­ver­si­ties to ensure this becomes a real­i­ty not mere­ly an aspi­ra­tion.”