Palestine

Student encampment at Adelaide University - Kaurna Yerta 5 May 2024. Photo: Jack Desbiolles

Why Segal’s plan to combat antisemitism in education is dangerous and should be rejected

anti-racism, , , ,

In her plan to battle antisemitism, Jillian Segal, the federal government’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, has delivered  a recipe for racial discord in schools and universities. It will stifle free speech and undermine superior attempts to combat racism. Segal will have the right to define the offences of antisemitism, the offenders and the punishments and will also shape the re-education of the various parties.

Responses

Prominent progressive Jews and Jewish groups, academics,  cultural and political commentators and human rights, Muslim, Palestinian, Indigenous groups highlight the plan’s considerable deficiencies.

 These commentators have identified the plan’s partisan definitions and arguments, untrustworthy evidence base and unreasonable and unwarranted policy recommendations. Segal’s claims are seen as excessive, and her proposals as repressive— potentially threatening democracy. If implemented, they believe her plan will undermine free speech, academic freedom and the right to protest.  

The Minister for Education, Jason Clare will not be bullied into ‘immediate action’. He is waiting for the report from the Islamophobia envoy (August) and the Australian Human Rights Commission’s review into racism in universities (November).  

Bad education, bad youth and a redemptive definition

Teachers, schools, universities and young people are in Segal’s sights. Her focus on education, Segal says, stems from the generational differences between the over and under 35s as to their ‘media consumption’, ‘perceptions of the Middle East and the Jewish community’ and the ‘Holocaust and its impacts on society’.   

To Segal, the under 35s are uninformed and misguided. They must be re-educated. Their universities and schools cannot be trusted to do this job because within them, antisemitism is ‘ingrained and normalised’.  So, despite her lack of educational expertise, Segal must step into the breach.

She will start by insisting that all educational institutions and systems adopt a particular definition of antisemitism. In its examples, this definition conflates anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiments with antisemitism. It has been persuasively discredited because of this dangerous conflation and because of its weaponisation.

But Segal wants to stick with it anyway. Afterall, it allows her to see examples of antisemitism whenever, wherever and however critical views about Israel and Zionism are expressed. It thus stretches her influence, multiplies her opportunities for denouncement and helps deflect wider attention away from Israel’s ever-more appalling treatment of the Palestinian people.

Rescuing universities?

This overzealous envoy expects universities to bow to as suspect definition She wants to

·      develop and launch a university report card, assessing each university’s implementation of effective practices and standards to combat antisemitism, including complaints systems and best practice policies, as well as consideration of whether the campus/online environment is conducive to Jewish students and staff participating actively and equally in university life.

·      work with government to enable government funding to be withheld, where possible, from universities, programs or individuals within universities that facilitate, enable or
fail to act against antisemitism. …

We argue there are  shades of authoritarianism here. Segal wants surveillance over university courses, teachers and researchers. She wants to repress speech and protest. She wants to intensify the current persecution of pro-Palestinian staff and students— those already silenced by many universities.  In short, she seeks to purge the university of voices and activities that she regards as illegitimate.

We think Segal also exhibits  moral blindness.  and fails to acknowledge that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people, currently and over time, provides a fertile context for anti-Israel sentiments.

In our view, her compassion appears to be reserved exclusively for those experiencing antisemitism— as defined above.  We have seen no ovidence that she shows pity for the fear and pain of others — certainly not for the anguish of the people in Gaza experiencing genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation. Is she blind to this increasingly recognised ‘moral emergency of our time’?

Saving schools?

The envoy’s proposed Key Actions for schools include working with appropriate authorities to

  • embed Holocaust and antisemitism education, with appropriate lesson plans, in national and state school curricula
  • provide guidance to government on antisemitism education for educators and public officials 
  • provide recommendations to government on enhancing education about Jewish history, identity, culture and antisemitism in high school curricula ..

Segal has no expertise in curriculum and pedagogy or in the philosophies and practices of anti-racist education. Those with such expertise are unlikely to welcome her ‘lesson plans’, ‘guidance’ and curriculum ‘enhancement’. They are more likely to see her approach as counter to the best available programmes and practices and as unaware of the composition of current classrooms.  

Many classrooms include students from all sorts of cultures, religions and circumstances — some very difficult.  Under Segal’s racially hierarchical regime these students would be entitled to ask, ‘What about my family’s and community’s struggles with racism? What about our ‘history, identity, culture’?  What about other experiences of genocide?’  

Alternative and superior approaches are available and necessary—including critical racial literacy alongside anti-racist, decolonial methods. These recognise that racism may be experienced differently by different groups. But they do not prioritise one racially subjugated group over another or pit racially subjugated groups against each other. Rather they adopt ‘systemic, intersectional, strengths-based, and coordinated action’ as the National Anti-Racism Framework explains.

Jane Kenway is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Australia, Emeritus Professor at Monash University and Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her research expertise is in educational sociology.  

Main image: Student encampment at Adelaide University – Kaurna Yerta 5 May 2024. Photo: Jack Desbiolles. There is no evidence to say that any of these patterns of censorship occurred during this encampment.

Student encampment at Adelaide University - Kaurna Yerta 5 May 2024. Photo: Jack Desbiolles

These are deeply disturbing patterns of censorship across Australian universities

censorship, , , ,

To stifle growing pro-Palestinian activities on Australian campuses, university authorities are developing and applying disparate techniques of control. Consequently, the university as a place of free speech, political activism and the right to protest is under attack.

The Universities of Sydney, Melbourne and WA are particularly punitive. The intricate intrusiveness and hyper-vigilance of their techniques of control are well known and widely criticised. 

All these techniques have been identified by members of Educational Researchers for Palestine — a group I belong to. Such patterns are evident in the views and material we have gathered from universities and from our own experiences, observations and communications with other staff and students. While the following techniques are not equally evident in all universities, various combinations are evident in many.

1. Control through double-speak

Universities claim to uphold free speech and academic freedom. But on matters related to Israel/Palestine they shut both down. They also claim to balance free speech with their antiracism agendas. But these agendas are selective. Antisemitism is their focus. Anti-Palestinian racism, including their own, is not. Anti-Palestinian racism involves ‘actions that silence, exclude, erase, stereotype, defame, or dehumanise Palestinians and their narratives.’ 

They say they balance free speech with ensuring a safe environment. But their main concern is the political backlash associated with purported complaints about the safety of Jewish students and staff. In contrast, the university itself creates an unsafe environment for Palestinian staff, students and their allies including their Jewish allies. 

2. Control through distraction

By focusing on antisemitism, universities distract attention from anti-Palestinian racism on campus and from Israel’s dreadful treatment of the Palestinian people. This distraction involves endless debates about what constitutes antisemitism. And universities’ ambiguous definitions of antisemitism allow them flexibility in classifying hateful and threatening speech. 

In February 2025, Universities Australia (UA) released its highly ambiguous ‘working definition of antisemitism’. This was endorsed by all 39 members. How individual universities will embed their endorsement is not yet clear but further distraction is guaranteed.  

3. Spatial control

Restrictions are placed on the spaces where Palestinian supporters might gather to prepare banners and posters, distribute materials and hold events.  Students are not allowed to announce events in classrooms or lecture theatres, to leave fliers on desks or posters on walls. These who don’t ‘belong’ to the university are prohibited from involvement in protests on university grounds and threatened with trespass. 

4. Language and image control

The campus is to be cleansed of posters, fliers, flags, chalked messages. Almost any image, phrase or slogan may be deemed antisemitic. Hence, all images of Palestine or messages of Palestine advocacy or solidarity can be defined as contravening university rules. 

5. Political control

Student and staff activities relating to Palestine are strongly discouraged — clubs, film screenings, speakers’ forums, petitioning, distributing leaflets, chalking— even fundraising. University approval can be sought but such approval is largely a delaying and censorship ploy involving microscopic bureaucratic hurdles. 

Some academic staff are expected to become agents of the university’s political control in their classrooms. They must ensure that nothing is said or seen that is unrelated to their immediate teaching topic. 

When linked to Palestine/Israel, certain research, teaching and learning are considered dangerous — justice and ethics, human rights, international law, settler colonialism, apartheid, imperialism and the history and geopolitics of the ‘middle east’.  Those pursuing such ‘dangerous knowledge’ may feel the need to water-down their curriculum and research. 

6. Technological surveillance

In some cases, if they are to use a university account staff and students must agree to being monitored.  Whether they agree or not technology is used to monitor pro-Palestinian activities, to identify ‘ring leaders’ and participants. Pro-Palestinian activists may also have their technology use restricted thus making it difficult to share information. Certainly, over time, universities have increased their surveillance of all staff and students — usually with little or no follow up. However, their surveillance and follow up have intensified in response to pro-Palestinian activism.

7. Discipline and punishment

Students and staff are subjected to various forms. Their self-defence is time-consuming, costly and emotionally draining. 

Peaceful events are often redefined as potentially threatening and violent. Hence security staff and police are used to ‘keep the peace’ and to identify and report ‘leaders’ and ‘troublemakers’. They have been used to shut down encampments and protests. At encampments they have not protected students from violent attacks by extreme right-wing groups.  Their presence is implicitly threatening, and their behaviour is sometimes physically violent.  

Undergraduate and graduate students have been ‘spoken to’, warned, suspended, fined and expelled. Staff have also been ‘spoken to’ and warned, had their teaching and other activities monitored and reported by pro-Israeli/Zionist students and other staff. They have had their research questioned and some have had their grants suspended. 

8. Climate control

A climate of fear and distrust is created.  It has a chilling effect on everyday university activities and relationships. Fear causes self-censorship. Events are relocated or re-badged. 

Staff feel their opportunities for jobs, tenure, promotion and academic leave are at risk. Students feel at risk of suspension and expulsions. They often don’t know if their peers, lecturers or supervisors will support or report them.  Palestinian, Muslim and Arab staff feel extra visible and vulnerable. 

The result: universities of bad faith and ethical emptiness

They have allowed themselves to be intimidated by politicians and special interest groups. They have tried to bury discussion of an inexcusable tragedy involving genocide. They have sacrificed the notion that knowledge must be free and fearless — corrupting truth and undermining trust and collegiality. Timid and small minded, they implicitly encourage staff and students to be the same. 

Were they not so ethically empty universities could have practised an ethic of care, courage and compassion in response to the ongoing horrors visited by Israel on Gaza and the West Bank. They could have developed this into a sector wide ethos. They could have responded to the desperate calls for help from Universities in Gaza. They could have explored, with staff and students, ways to help Gaza recover from the educational obliteration of scholasticide. They could have mobilised their knowledge and expertise to contribute to understandings of the issues and to consider how university members might help alleviate the Palestinian people’s terrible suffering. 

Could have? Should have.

Jane Kenway is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Australia, Emeritus Professor at Monash University and Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her research expertise is in educational sociology.  

Main image: Student encampment at Adelaide University – Kaurna Yerta 5 May 2024. Photo: Jack Desbiolles. There is no evidence to say that any of these patterns of censorship occurred during this encampment.

Palestine teachers

Palestine: is it possible for teachers to be neutral?

anti-colonialism, civics and citizenship education, , , , , ,

Interest in Palestine amongst students and the wider public raises an age-old question regarding the teaching profession: can educators be neutral and objective? Is it possible for teachers to discuss what is happening right now across the Gaza Strip in ways that maintain an ‘unbiased’ position? 

State governments and conservative commentators have attacked teachers who have shown solidarity with Palestine or have dared to discuss the current genocide in Gaza within schools. The NSW Minister for Education, Pru Carr, has taken issue with teachers who wear Palestinian scarves in schools. She has said, “We rely on them [teachers] to be impartial in the classroom.” Similarly, Victorian Education Minister, Ben Carroll, warned educators about participating in any organised activity in support of Palestine. Carroll stated that ‘teachers in government schools must be unbiased and not have political agendas’. 

Students in Australian schools want to talk about Palestine

For over a year, we have seen school students assemble and actively rally in support of school students in Gaza. Not since the student climate protests have we seen such enthusiasm amongst Australian students. In almost every capital city, and some regional areas, students have participated in strikes in solidarity with Palestinians. In the course of mobilising, we are witnessing students become ‘active and informed’ on Palestine. Yet, school students participating in these strikes have been scolded by politicians and conservative commentators. They have told students to stay in class and ‘educate’ themselves. 

Take the NSW Premier, Chris Minns. He condemned the student strikes, stating: “If you [students] want to change the world, get an education.” A student protesting in Wollongong responded, ‘Because I am educated I am here, because I am informed I am here at this rally … I would love to be at school, I would love for the children of Gaza to be at school’. 

Similarly, hundreds of school students in Melbourne defied the Victorian Education Minister’s condemnation of their strike. The Minister Ben Carroll said students should be in school. A parent of a student protestor responded, “Young people are often presented as being naïve or ignorant and shouldn’t have an opinion when it comes to politics – I disagree.” Another student stated, “They’re not really teaching it in class. So the only way you’re going to find out is if you come to the rallies; educate yourself because you’re not learning any of it at school. It’s not even getting mentioned at school.”

Educators are told to be ‘impartial’ and ‘unbiased’ about Palestine

Similar to students, educators themselves have organised ‘Teachers for Palestine’ groups across NSW and Victoria. These groups have led rallies and held Zoom sessions to discuss incorporating content about Palestine in the curriculum. They have also discussed how to support students currently striking for Palestine. Two major groups include Teachers and School Staff for Palestine – NSW and Teachers/Staff for Palestine in Victoria. In some cases, educators have shown solidarity by openly supporting student strikes and wearing Palestinian Keffiyehs (scarves) or watermelon badges. 

Teacher unions have supported these initiatives and even passed motions that acknowledge the rights of teachers to discuss the current genocide with their students. For example, the NSW Teachers Federation Vice-President pointed out educators have a long history of publicly supporting anti-war and social justice causes. Similarly, the Australian Education Union sent its members a bulletin about the right to respectfully discuss Palestine in classrooms.

Recently, on the eve of ‘R U Ok Day’, the NSW Teachers for Palestine group posted the following:

Teaching is a political act

A common argument for teacher neutrality is that it avoids students being brainwashed. But the purpose of critical approaches to citizenship education is not to tell students what to think. It is to support them to ask questions. When the questions are curtailed, we all lose as a democracy, and we lose the opportunity to challenge injustice.

A second argument for neutrality, or more precisely, silence, is that there is no room for politics in the curriculum. However the Australian Curriculum encourages engagement with the world and with the interests that students bring across multiple subject areas. Recognising what students bring with them to school should include recognising that they are developing an understanding of conflict and politics before they enter the classroom door. There is no point pretending that politics does not exist.

All education is political

We commonly engage initial teacher education students with theories of critical pedagogies. For example, Paulo Freire argued in his landmark book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed that ‘all education is political; teaching is never a neutral act’. Similar words were echoed by bell hooks, who wrote in Teaching to Transgress that ‘no education is politically neutral’. More recently, a pioneer of critical pedagogy Henry Giroux wrote: “Those arguing that education should be neutral are really arguing for a version of education in which no one is accountable.”

Teachers are citizens and workers. They have political opinions and many are members of labour organisations. They are also responsible for helping their students to become informed, questioning and critical citizens. Pressure from educational authorities for teachers to hide their beliefs and opinions is damaging for both students and teachers.

Governments are keen to avoid political or politicised topics. Their eyes are more firmly on  negative media attention than on ethical considerations. A slippery standard is therefore applied. Almost any topic can become politicised or attract media attention, which makes schools increasingly timid. And attempts to silence discussion are applied unevenly even with similar issues. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have been treated very differently by governments and inside schools, despite the fact that both have similarities in raising sensitive issues of conflict and trauma.

The teaching profession cannot be neutral, unbiased nor objective

As citizens, teachers and students take on multiple roles. They constantly give off signals about their beliefs, even if in subtle or unrecognised ways. As long as these support the status quo, they are unquestioned. But when they go against the status quo, there is a need to make claims on the rights that all students and teachers have to express themselves. A long tradition in critical scholarship shows that ‘apolitical education’ is a myth. What is often framed as ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ within education systems stems from Eurocentric white supremacy. 

Palestine presents us with a reminder that education can never be neutral. As outlined previously, many teachers and students wish to engage in discussions about Palestine. The Australian curriculum presents many opportunities despite the condemnation that various Education Ministers have offered. It is this contradiction that affirms how neutrality in the context of an on-going genocide, live streamed to the social media devices of our students can be one that supports it, as Paulo Freire himself once said, ‘Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral’. 

From left to right: Ryan Al-Natour works as a lecturer in teacher education at Charles Sturt University on Wiradjuri Country. He is written widely about antiracist teaching, social justice pedagogies and Indigenous education. Joel Windle is an associate professor of education at the University of South Australia. He has undertaken research on educational inequalities and community activism in Australia and Brazil. Sarah McDonald is a lecturer based at the Centre for Research in Education & Social Inclusion at the University of South Australia where she conducts research in the areas of gendered subjectivities, social mobility, social barriers, and inequalities in education.

Student encampment at Adelaide University - Kaurna Yerta 5 May 2024. Photo: Jack Desbiolles

Are student encampments sites of pedagogy and learning?

civics and citizenship education, pedagogy, , , , , ,

When you enter the encampment, you see colour: the red, green, black and white of Palestinian flags and posters and the red, yellow and black of Aboriginal flags, clusters of multicoloured tents and the vibrant hues of children’s artwork. If you walk around, you pass the community library, public notice boards and tables sharing leaflets. There’s a central gathering space with circles of chairs and cushions in watermelon red and green. There may be paintbrushes scattered around from the latest banner painting session, a film screening underway. There may be a researching bee taking place, or myriad teach-ins. You’ll likely see a plurality of students of various religious, racial, gender, class and political positionings, all committed to working together. You might catch the scent of smoky fire cheese fry pans or see students cooking up some other feast from the community pantry.

If you stop and browse in the library or scan the noticeboard, chances are you’ll be greeted by students who are keen to chat about their concerns, local and global happenings and what the encampment is demanding: disclose ties to weapons companies, all funding and research deals; divest and cut ties with all weapons manufacturers; solidarity with Palestine and an end to the occupation. And chances are students will tell you it’s good that you are here. Together, we might ask the question of how can university students and staff support each other to teach and research in solidarity with Palestine? The message from students is clear: “Come down to the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Help us build the anti-war campaign and stand in solidarity with Palestine.”

A global movement

Similar Gaza solidarity encampments have arisen on university campuses globally. Most establishment figures and institutions have insisted on crackdowns, closures and punitive measures. Encampments in the USA, Germany, the Netherlands and Greece have suffered threats and harsh physical and procedural treatment from police and universities.  Mainstream media portray the encampments as hotbeds of antisemitism and violence. Such portrayals bear little resemblance to these camps’ operations.

Through social media the students decide on their own portrayals. They also publish formal statements and have their own student news outlets. Sharing is to inform, explain, inspire, warn. Confronting images of the NYPD invading student encampments across New York City ricochet around the globe.

What encampments teach

All encampments raise awareness about the justice of the Palestinian cause and the horrors of the war in Gaza.  They demand their universities disclose and end their association with suppliers of arms to the Israeli state. Banners read ‘Disclose Divest. We will not stop. We will not rest’. ‘Stop the lies. Cut the ties’. If they meet with university leaders, if a university agrees to some demands, the students reveal it. They denounce those leaders who refuse to talk.

They post images of camps, campus marches with allies, occupations, die ins, rings of staff protecting students, of graduation ceremonies where gowned students unfurl Free Palestine banners and the Palestinian flag as they receive their awards. Through social media they hear each other’s chants and slogans, see each other’s banners and flags. ‘Stop Genocide Ceasefire Now’ ‘Jews against Genocide’ And they hear each other’s insistent voices— speaking, praying, singing, reciting poetry. Messages of support and solidarity flow out, flow in. Palestinians in Gaza send thanks. The students share lists and maps showing the latest encampments. A map of the Nordic countries is headed Students all across the Nordics are mobilising …. 13 encampments, 12 cities, 4 countries. Another map appears of Belgium’s five encampments; similarly, a map of Sweden.

They also share why, when and how some encampments end—seldom willingly. One student asks ‘What kind of system do we live in where an institution can call the police on you for opposing genocide?’

Pedagogic spaces

Moving through any encampment you might see a banner with the encampment’s ground rules, laying the foundation for a community collectively governed. We might see students reading books from the encampment library or gathering to prepare the next speech, rally, banner or chant. The air will be abuzz with the sound of community in the making. Students are becoming practiced in all manner of community actions, educating, caring and creating.

In the encampments, we see, feel, hear, envision and are invited into the cocreation of student-led pedagogies of action, protest, disruption and insurgence pedagogies of love and carepedagogies of peace and encircling pedagogies that exceed/seed/cede  We see the enactment of education as something you do with and for other people.

A different way of doing education

University encampments invite us into a different way of doing education that defies institutional control. These are spaces that nurture student-led movements which are disrupting and expanding the boundaries of education. Such student-led projects extend beyond racial, religious, national and disciplinary boundaries, and refuse to be co-opted into the institutional status quo. Attending to student-led movements such as university encampments for Palestine opens possibilities for us to revitalise universities as generative spaces of study.

These students are refusing to spend their time of higher learning being processed as obedient units of the colonial class system that sacrifices our humanity, in one way or another, to the death spiral of global capitalism. They are insisting, instead, upon their right to create home, joy, and liveable futures. – Eugenia Zuroski

In the words of Eman Abdelhadi, the encampments are “gifting a new experience of wholeness”. They have “helped heal some of the wounds of the past seven months and reenergized us for the fight ahead.”  The students’ university’s connections with the world confront the public university’s silence about and repression of what is happening in the world.

Don’t ask why students are protesting. Ask what died in you that you are not

The students have highlighted scholasticide in Palestine. The destruction of universities, schools, libraries, museums. The loss of many teachers, students, academics, intellectuals, writers, artists. In contrast most university leaders have been mute — failing to mourn the loss of what they claim to value.  Failing to offer solace.  Failing linguistically too. Any encampment student could explain that From the river to the sea and Intifada are not antisemitic and have special meaning for the Palestinian people. Largely, the leadership ignores this. Neither do they want to learn from Jewish members of the encampments who insist that Jewishness must not be used to justify genocide. Like many members of the Jewish community, when they say, Never again, they mean never again for anyone.

What university leaders could learn

University leaders could learn from the students’ ethical clarity. The students are providing the moral leadership expected from sites of knowledge and learning. And many staff are fearlessly joining them, despite the silencing chill from above. In contrast university leaders talk of Jewish students’ fear of attending campus and of the inconvenience of disruption and damage. If they visited the encampments and looked at the students’ screens, they would see the everyday, every night fear, disruption and damage of the Gaza war. This might help them gain a sense of perspective.

And having witnessed the encampments’ liveliness, diversity, community engagement and transnational solidarity they might think twice about the loss of the university’s soul and conscience under their watch.  

Our job is not to protect the institution or its timelines or its profits or its myths of impartiality. Our job is to be strong for our students and to protect them every way we can so that they can realize their own visions of peace and liberation for Palestine. As you go to class today, remember, there are no universities left in Gaza. – Eugenia Zuroski

Main image: Student encampment at Adelaide University – Kaurna Yerta 5 May 2024. Photo: Jack Desbiolles

Jane Kenway is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Australia, Emeritus Professor at Monash University and Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her research expertise is in educational sociology.  

Katie Maher lectures in Education at the University of South Australia. She co-chairs the Pedagogies for Justice research group and is a Series Editor for AARE’s Local/Global Issues in Education book series.