{"id":71,"date":"2025-07-17T07:14:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T07:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/71\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T07:14:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T07:14:16","slug":"tackle-racism-in-whatever-form-labor-defers-response-to-contentious-antisemitism-proposals-for-universities-australian-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/71\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Tackle racism in whatever form\u2019: Labor defers response to contentious antisemitism proposals for universities | Australian universities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal government will defer its response to Jillian Segal\u2019s contentious plan to address antisemitism <\/a>on campuses until after it has received a broader review of racism at universities and a separate report from the Islamophobia envoy, the education minister has confirmed.<\/p>\n

Jason Clare outlined the process to reporters on Wednesday, saying he wanted to \u201ctackle racism in whatever form it comes\u201d.<\/p>\n

The antisemitism envoy\u2019s 20-page plan, released last Thursday<\/a>, made a range of recommendations for the higher education sector, including launching a \u201cuniversity report card\u201d and withholding government funding from universities that \u201cfacilitate, enable or fail to act against antisemitism\u201d.<\/p>\n

The powers would also allow public grants provided to university centres, academics or researchers to be terminated \u201cwhere the recipient engages in antisemitic or otherwise discriminatory or hateful speech or actions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Peak Jewish groups backed the envoy\u2019s plan, with the Executive Council of Australian Jewry saying the measures were\u201curgently needed\u201d. But some academics, human rights groups and peak bodies have expressed concerns that moves could be weaponised to stifle free speech and dissent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Clare said racism existed at universities \u201cin all its ugly forms\u201d, not just antisemitism.<\/p>\n

He said he would wait until a report from the special envoy in combating Islamophobia<\/a> was handed down in August, and a broader review into racism at universities was released by the Australian Human Rights Commission in December, before his government responded to Segal\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore we consider those recommendations to their final conclusion, I want to look at the recommendations of the special envoy on Islamophobia, and I also want to see the work of the race discrimination [commissioner],\u201d Clare said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s fair, I think that\u2019s the right thing to do. But it\u2019s not just antisemitism and it\u2019s not just Islamophobia. Ask Indigenous kids at university today and they\u2019ll say \u2018Well, don\u2019t forget me\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think I need to look at all of those reports that might make different recommendations. I want to tackle racism in whatever form it comes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if providing the capacity for the federal government to intervene in funding mechanisms might echo the Trump administration\u2019s intervention into universities<\/a> including Harvard and Columbia, as the Jewish Council of Australia has argued, Clare said he made \u201cno comment on that\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeqsa, the regulator, has powers here already,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re different in kind to what\u2019s being recommended in this report, but they enable Teqsa to go in and either put conditions on a university or to penalise them, to apply to a court to issue fines.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The federal government first tasked the Australian Human Rights Commission with undertaking a study into racism at universities in May 2024, with initial consultations taking place among First Nations, Jewish, Muslim and other \u201cnegatively racialised communities\u201d.<\/p>\n

The race discrimination commissioner, Giridharan Sivaraman, said when the interim report was released in December that one of the \u201ccatalysts\u201d of the project was the need to respond to the \u201calarming increase in antisemitism on university campuses over the last 12 months\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThemes emerging from our consultations so far include \u2026 dissatisfaction with complaints mechanisms, the disconnect between universities\u2019 policies on racism and their practice, and the challenge of finding a common language and understanding around racism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Labor MP Ed Husic on Wednesday raised concern with the envoy\u2019s recommendation of wider adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which is contested in some quarters<\/a> due to concerns it was being used to conflate antisemitism with criticism of Israel, and is already facing pushback from Labor MPs and rank-and-file members. Husic said the government should be \u201cvery careful\u201d about such a move, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s not antisemitic to criticise the actions of the government of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, have not indicated which parts of the plan the government will take up, but Labor sources downplayed the prospect of terminating university funding. It is widely expected the government could focus its response on the education and prevention measures in Segal\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

The Coalition<\/a> has endorsed Segal\u2019s plan, but also not nominated specifically which measures it would support. In comments to Guardian Australia,
the shadow home affairs minister, Andrew Hastie, urged the Labor government to focus on a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at universities, a visa crackdown and a dedicated law enforcement taskforce.<\/p>\n

Hastie said the Coalition would \u201cwork constructively\u201d with the government on its response. He also said a Coalition priority would be \u201cpreventing taxpayer money going to organisations with extremist views\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Special Envoy\u2019s plan makes it clear that there is an antisemitism crisis gripping Australia, and it is past time the prime minister stopped admiring the problem and started showing leadership,\u201d Hastie said.<\/p>\n

This story was amended on 17 July 2025. An earlier version said the human rights commission would release its review into racism at universities in October, based on information provided by the commission. The commission has since said the review will be released in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government will defer its response to Jillian Segal\u2019s contentious plan to address antisemitism on campuses until…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}