Public Hearing Block 4

Counsel Assisting Zelie Heger opened the hearing block with a warning: the Commission had received evidence of verbal abuse, intimidation and physical assault directed at Jewish staff and students, and of Jewish community members concealing their identities to feel safer on campus.

The Australian Human Rights Commission presented data that gave that warning scale. AHRC president Hugh de Kretser told the Commission that 89.1% of Jewish respondents reported experiencing direct or indirect racism at Australian universities, among the highest rates of any group surveyed. Almost three in four Jewish students, and four in five Jewish staff, reported a negative impact on their mental health.

Lived-experience witnesses brought those numbers to life. A Jewish law student who gave evidence under the pseudonym ‘ACL’ described Nazi salutes in classrooms. An ANU student known as Liat described seeing graffiti declaring "Israel does not have the right to exist" and posters equating the Star of David with "baby killers." A UNSW tutor under the pseudonym ‘ACJ’ and academic Dr Andy Smidt described slurs, repeated accusations of being "genocide supporters", and the daily weight of passing encampments and protests as a Jewish person on campus.

Professor Josh Keller, appearing for the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism (5A), described the problem as "real and under-researched" ranging from ambient prejudice through rallies and posters to direct harassment of Jewish staff and students.

Vice-chancellors from Australia's leading universities acknowledged failures in person and on the record. Only 6% of Jewish university staff and students who experienced direct racism made a formal complaint. That figure, from the AHRC's Respect at Uni survey presented by Hugh de Kretser, is the starting point for understanding what the Commission heard about institutional responses this week. Among those who did complain, strong majorities of academic staff, domestic students and international students were dissatisfied with how universities handled their reports.

Witnesses described complaint processes that were slow, opaque and not trauma-informed. A witness known as Ms Cohen described a library incident involving Hitler's speeches and antisemitic tropes. Her complaint sat unresolved for eight months, was miscategorised, and linked to a defunct email address. Her university only took action after she threatened to go to the media.

Vice-chancellors from Australia's leading universities acknowledged failures in person and on the record. UNSW Vice-Chancellor Attila Brungs accepted that the university's complaint procedure had been found internally to be overly complex, inconsistently structured, lacking trauma-informed practices and prone to delays – and that its current case management system cannot classify a complaint as antisemitic. 

University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott acknowledged six-month complaint timeframes and committed to an end-to-end review. Australian National University’s (ANU) Acting Provost Joan Leach conceded the university's handling of a complaint about a Nazi salute was "not a trauma-informed approach."

In his hearing, Michael Gencher, CEO of StandWithUs, told the Commission that Jewish students were "waiting out" their degrees rather than lodging complaints. He described unresolved cases where students verbally abused in campus cafes received no response and where lecture complaints dragged on for months. He also confirmed a complaint made in June 2024 about a Jewish student being harangued in a Sydney university cafeteria had still received no response.

University vice-chancellors admitted this week that they were unprepared for anti-Israel encampments, and that their failure to act decisively left Jewish students and staff exposed.

University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott gave a series of apologies under questioning, acknowledging that staff were aware outside actors –including members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, subsequently designated a hate group by the federal government - had joined the encampment from the outset, but that the university had few means to remove them and no forward plan. The encampment ran for more than two months, reaching an estimated 139 tents at its peak.

University of Melbourne Interim Vice-Chancellor Glyn Davis acknowledged there had been little "scenario planning" for protest camps, even as similar situations had unfolded at universities across the United States and the United Kingdom. "That people would go out of their way to vilify Jewish students," he told the Commission, "is so antithetical to the idea of a university, the idea of civility and the idea of respect for others, that it is hard not to despair."

Professor Steven Prawer described entering his University of Melbourne office to find approximately 20 masked intruders, their faces covered with keffiyahs. ANU’s Interim Vice-Chancellor Rebekah Brown accepted that the university had failed in its duties to Jewish staff and students and apologised that they did not feel safe, respected or heard.

The picture across institutions was consistent: encampments in central campus areas created high-risk environments for Jewish staff and students, and universities' responses were reactive, late and focused more on de-escalation than on protecting the equal participation and safety of all members of their communities.

Monash Vice Chancellor Sharon Pickering told the Commission the university decided a line had been crossed when one of the groups behind the encampment posted online that Zionists weren't welcome at the university.

One of the most contested questions before the Commission this week was where legitimate criticism of Israeli policy ends and antisemitism targeting Jewish people begins and what responsibility universities bear for drawing and enforcing that line.

Professor Jennifer Westacott, former CEO of the Business Council of Australia, made the point in media rounds this week that many universities had mistaken hate speech for free speech. "Placards calling for the murder of Jews, chants calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state, and the intimidation of Jewish students and lecturers are not a contest of ideas," her submission read. "Too many universities hid behind the veil of free speech, and too many used academic freedom as cover for tolerating what was plainly abhorrent." 

AHRC president Hugh de Kretser warned against the "purposeful conflation" of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, and described claims that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic as "patently wrong." But he also agreed that treating Jewishness and support for Israel as one and the same can lead to Jews being treated unfavourably simply for being Jewish, and that both Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish students may be targeted as a result.

At UNSW, Vice-Chancellor Brungs acknowledged the university had adopted three different definitions of antisemitism - the IHRA definition, the Jerusalem Declaration and the Universities Australia wording and committed to moving to a single definition, co-designed with Jewish staff and students. University of Melbourne's Davis accepted that symbolic adoption of definitions without clear operative force was a sector-wide problem.

The testimony that will stay with anyone who followed this week's hearings will most likely be from Jewish students describing what it cost them simply to be who they are on an Australian university campus.

Witness ‘ACL’ told the Commission that for the first time in her life she felt she "couldn't be Jewish on campus." She stopped wearing her Magen David necklace and "stripped" her Jewish identity before every class. A lecturer told her that a particular scholar was a "good Jew" because he was "not a Zionist." Another lecturer told her that her experiences did not amount to "overt" racism.

Liat described daily decisions about whether to present as "Jewish Liat" or "regular Leah" by hiding her Hebrew name and her necklace. She spoke about being told by a tutor it was "a shame" she was Israeli, and how she was met with silence when she raised concerns with peers. A motion she put forward asserting that Jewish students have a right to belong at ANU was stripped of clauses condemning Hamas and supporting a two-state solution. She withdrew it and told the Commission she had concluded there was "very hard ground left to stand on" as a Jew at ANU.

The AHRC data confirmed these were not isolated experiences. Almost three in four Jewish students reported a negative impact on their mental health. The Commission heard that identity concealment - the daily calculation of how visible to be – had become a coping mechanism for many Jewish students and staff across the country.

ANU Acting Provost Joan Leach accepted on the record that Liat had been a victim of antisemitic abuse and should not have been made to feel she had to hide her Jewish identity. UNSW Vice-Chancellor Attila Brungs pledged before the Commission to take proactive steps to reverse the sense of exclusion felt by Jewish staff. Both commitments are now on the record.

This reflects similar themes that appeared throughout Hearing Block 1 and Hearing Block 3.