ECAJ submission to Hodgkinson inquiry into University of Sydney’s policies and processes.

Over the years, and espe­cial­ly in the last 12 months, the ECAJ, as well as some of its Con­stituents and Affil­i­ates, have been in reg­u­lar dia­logue with the lead­er­ship of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney (the Uni­ver­si­ty) to advo­cate for an envi­ron­ment that is free of racial and reli­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion and offers all Jew­ish and Israeli stu­dents, pro­fes­sion­al staff and aca­d­e­mics the same oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn and to teach respec­tive­ly that are offered to all oth­er stu­dents and aca­d­e­mics.

Regret­tably, the cul­ture of the Uni­ver­si­ty has changed con­sid­er­ably over a pro­longed peri­od, and most marked­ly since the mas­sacre by Hamas in south­ern Israel on 7 Octo­ber 2023. Per­verse­ly, the mur­der of 1,200 peo­ple in Israel and the tak­ing of 251 hostages by Hamas on 7 Octo­ber 2023 sparked an anti-Israel protest move­ment that has a strong­ly anti­se­mit­ic under­cur­rent and which has catal­ysed pre­vi­ous­ly latent anti­semitism into a per­va­sive and threat­en­ing force at the Uni­ver­si­ty.

Dia­logue between the University’s lead­er­ship and the Aus­tralian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty that was once char­ac­terised by open­ness and good faith has, in the last year, felt tokenis­tic and disin­gen­u­ous, focused less on gen­uine learn­ing and pos­i­tive actions and more on dam­age con­trol and optics. While the ECAJ and its rel­e­vant Con­stituents and Affil­i­ates have often had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to voice their con­cerns, and have been heard polite­ly, the Uni­ver­si­ty lead­er­ship has failed to lis­ten and takeap­pro­pri­ate actions in response to this dia­logue.

The break­ing point for the Aus­tralian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty was the shock announce­ment that the Uni­ver­si­ty had entered into an agree­ment with a group act­ing in con­cert with the extrem­ist Hizb ut-Tahrir organ­i­sa­tion, to par­tic­i­pate in a work­ing group to review the University’s invest­ments and defence and secu­ri­ty-relat­ed research activ­i­ties. This pan­der­ing to rad­i­calised fac­tions is just one exam­ple of the sidelin­ing of the val­ues that ought to imbue the approach uni­ver­si­ties take to the pro­vi­sion of ter­tiary edu­ca­tion. It fol­lowed writ­ten and ver­bal assur­ances from Vice Chan­cel­lor Mark Scott that no fur­ther offers would be made by the Uni­ver­si­ty to the group. These assur­ances were not hon­oured.

In addi­tion, the ECAJ has con­sis­tent­ly raised with the Uni­ver­si­ty lead­er­ship issues includ­ing a lack of under­stand­ing by the Uni­ver­si­ty lead­er­ship as to what anti­semitism is; how it is man­i­fest­ed; the intim­i­da­tion of Jew­ish stu­dents, staff, vis­it­ing aca­d­e­mics from Israel, and oppo­nents of the encamp­ment; jiha­di involve­ment in the encamp­ment and protests and rhetor­i­cal sup­port for Hamas; denial of 7 Octo­ber 2023 atroc­i­ties by aca­d­e­mics; ongo­ing dis­tur­bance and dilu­tion of a qual­itylearn­ing and work envi­ron­ment; and the mis­use of the Mod­el Code on Free­dom of Speech and Aca­d­e­m­ic Free­dom. We have not seen appro­pri­ate action tak­en with respect to any of these mat­ters.

Read the full sub­mis­sion (down­load below) for detailed sub­mis­sions on:

• Lack of under­stand­ing of what con­sti­tutes anti­semitism by Uni­ver­si­ty lead­er­ship
• Intim­i­da­tion of Jew­ish stu­dents, staff, vis­it­ing aca­d­e­mics, and any oth­er oppo­nents of the encamp­ment
• Jiha­di involve­ment in the encamp­ment, protests and events
• Ongo­ing dis­tur­bance and dilu­tion of a qual­i­ty learn­ing envi­ron­ment
• Mis­use of Mod­el Code on Free­dom of Speech and Aca­d­e­m­ic Free­dom

An exter­nal review of poli­cies and process­es by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney is a wel­come and nec­es­sary devel­op­ment fol­low­ing sev­er­al years of pro­gres­sive­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tions for Jew­ish stu­dents, staff and aca­d­e­mics at the Uni­ver­si­ty and eleven months of per­va­sive hos­til­i­ty and anti­semitism on cam­pus. In this envi­ron­ment, social cohe­sion has dete­ri­o­rat­ed, and truth, objec­tiv­i­ty, aca­d­e­m­ic rigour and empa­thy have been side­lined. It is the ECAJ’s hope that this review will iden­ti­fy the seri­ous insti­tu­tion­al prob­lems that have led to this decline and explore meth­ods of address­ing them effec­tive­ly. We believe that words must be accom­pa­nied by actions, and that unless embed­ded anti­semitism is con­front­ed and denounced through con­crete mea­sures, the University’s rep­u­ta­tion as a lead­ing ter­tiary insti­tu­tion will suf­fer irrepara­bly.

Download full submission

• ECAJ Sub­mis­sion Hodgkin­son Inquiry (PDF: 1.7MB)