Australia¡¯s racism watchdog has criticised a plan to freeze the funding of universities that fail to contain antisemitism on campus, saying the proposal risks trampling institutional autonomy.

Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman said the proposal, floated by the government¡¯s special envoy to combat antisemitism, had not adequately considered a ¡°balancing of rights¡±.

¡°There needs to be protection against racial vilification and hate speech, but there also has to be protection of the independence of institutions, whether it be universities, media or other institutions,¡± Sivaraman the National Press Club. ¡°Whatever restrictions you make need to be proportionate to the harm that you¡¯re trying to eradicate.¡±

The envoy, Jillian Segal, proposes a ¡°university report card¡± assessing each university¡¯s ¡°practices and standards to combat antisemitism¡±. She wants government funding withheld ¡°from universities, programmes or individuals within universities that facilitate, enable or fail to act against antisemitism¡±.

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Public grants to university centres, academics or researchers should also be ¡°subject to termination¡± if ¡°the recipient engages in antisemitic or otherwise discriminatory or hateful speech or actions¡±.

Sivaraman said his team was in discussions with Segal. ¡°It is very important to maintain the independence of our institutions as a matter of fundamental human rights and due process. It is really important to get that right.¡±

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He said the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) would need to ¡°grapple with¡± institutional independence in its own study of racism on campuses. The ¡°¡± study, commencing on 11 August, is billed as the biggest ever examination of the prevalence, nature and impact of racism at Australian universities.

¡°We don¡¯t know how pervasive it is,¡± Sivaraman told?the Press Club. ¡°We¡¯ve worked really hard¡­to come up with good ways of collecting the data, because it¡¯s a challenge. We do not have good measurements of racism and the incidence of racism in this country.¡±

The survey is part of a larger study including focus groups, a literature review and a policy audit. The entire project was initially scheduled to be completed in June. Originally called ¡°Respect At Uni¡±, and now ¡°i¡±, it was in May last year amid opposition and cross-bench calls for a into antisemitism on campuses.

Prominent Jewish opposition member Julian Leeser said the AHRC inquiry was ¡°woefully inadequate¡± because the commission was demonstrably unwilling to deal with rising antisemitism. Then shadow education minister Sarah Henderson said the AHRC had played down antisemitism and the October 2023 attack on Israel, and a staff member had posted hostile commentary about ¡°Zionists¡± on social media.

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Then AHRC president Rosalind Croucher?told??that the Jewish community was a ¡°major stakeholder group¡±.

The opposition has also lobbied for universities to be compelled to adopt the contested International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Segal wants the IHRA definition ¡°used across all levels of government and public institutions¡±.

¡°Universities must ensure they adopt a definition of antisemitism that is effective in addressing antisemitism on campus,¡± her says.

Sivaraman said he opposed ¡°definitions of specific types of racism¡±, and his commission had explicitly chosen not to adopt definitions ahead of the university study. ¡°We don¡¯t want anyone feeling like they cannot come forward and speak about their experiences due to a definition that¡¯s been created before we¡¯ve even heard from them.¡±

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He said the Race Discrimination Act, which empowers the commission to deal with complaints, contained no definitions of ¡°particular¡± types of racism. ¡°You can¡¯t ¡­have a specific definition because you don¡¯t know what the context of that complaint is going to be.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com