Right: Street protests and university campus violence are affecting government across the world, including in Australia, where the issue may decide the outcome of an upcoming federal election.
 Found a word you're not familiar with? Double-click that word to bring up a dictionary reference to it. The dictionary page includes an audio sound file with which to actually hear the word said. |
Arguments against Australian universities banning pro-Palestinian protests
1. Universities should promote students' freedom of speech, not seek to suppress itSupporters of pro-Palestinian protests on campus argue that one of the fundamental principles of intellectual life is freedom of thought and freedom of expression. They claim that universities should support these principles by allowing student protesters to express their views on university sites.
Laws in the United States guarantee free speech. The United States Civil Liberties Union states in its document 'Speech on Campus', dated December 18, 2023, 'The First Amendment to the [United States] Constitution protects speech no matter how offensive its content. Restrictions on speech by public colleges and universities amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution. Such restrictions deprive students of their right to invite speech they wish to hear, debate speech with which they disagree, and protest speech they find bigoted or offensive. An open society depends on liberal education, and the whole enterprise of liberal education is founded on the principle of free speech.'
United States commentators have claimed that recent actions taken against pro-Palestinian protesters have violated their rights to freedom of speech. An article published by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) stated, 'Universities should be havens for robust debate, discussion, and learning - not sites of censorship where administrators, donors, and politicians squash political discourse they don't approve of. But Columbia University recently violated New York law to single out and suspend two student groups for participating in a peaceful student demonstration and temporary art installation in support of Palestinian rights.' The NYCLU stated, 'That's retaliatory, it's targeted, and it flies in the face of the free speech principles that institutes of higher learning should be defending.'
Australian law does not offer the same protection for free speech. The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has stated that in the absence of clear guarantees of freedom of expression within the Australian Constitution, many Australian universities are becoming less supportive of freedom of speech. In a freedom of speech on campus audit published on August 10, 2023, the IPA stated, 'In 2023, almost all Australian universities are hostile to freedom of speech on campus: 38 of Australia's 42 universities (90 percent) are rated 'red' for having policies that are hostile to free speech on campus, an increase from 33 in 2018 and 31 in 2017. Four of Australia's universities (10 percent) are rated 'amber' for policies that threaten free speech on campus, a decrease from 8 in 2018 and 10 in 2017. Zero universities are rated 'green' for supporting free speech on campus, a decrease of one institution, The University of New England, in 2018.' The IPA further noted, 'The total combined hostility scores of all Australian universities [toward freedom of speech on campus] has more than doubled since 2016.'
Critics have claimed that calls to disband pro-Palestinian protests on Australian university campuses are an attack on freedom of expression. In a comment published by the University of Sydney Newsroom, on May 27, 2024, Luke McNamara, Professor in the Faculty of Law and Justice and member of the Centre for Criminology, Law & Justice at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, asked, 'Aren't university campuses exactly the places where young adults should be allowed the maximum possible space to develop and share their political voices?' Reviewing the recent demands that pro-Palestinian protests be dispersed, McNamara suggests, 'The day that a peaceful human rights-affirming assembly on a public university campus (even one that causes distress to some members of the university community) is deemed intolerable may well be the day we have to face the fact that...the right to protest is very ill indeed.'
Sydney University vice chancellor, Mark Scott, has similarly argued that universities must continue to be places where freedom of speech is fostered. Defending his institution's decision to allow pro-Palestinian protests to continue, he has stated, 'Over the years you can go back to the Vietnam War, the conscription debate - there have always been strongly held views and intense debates. That's part of who we are. Our instinct is never to pre-emptively shut down free speech and debate and the right to protest.'
2. Universities should be places of academic freedom where a wide variety of views are encouraged and debated, including among staff.
Critics of any ban on Pro-Palestinian protests claim that such bans may encourage restrictions being placed on what views academics are allowed to present to their students and those students are able to debate. Supporters of the pro-Palestinian protests argue that openness to diverse opinions is fundamental to university education.
Critics of the protest bans note that several United States academics have been threatened with penalties for expressing pro-Palestinian views and that this undermines their academic independence. In an opinion piece published in Inside Higher Ed on May 3, 2024, Ryan Quinn stated, 'Many faculty members have raised alarm over these events, saying they threaten two often-overlapping concepts: academic freedom and free speech. After Columbia's president suggested to House Republicans that faculty members may face discipline for their speech...concerns began to multiply about politicians, university donors and board members limiting what professors wish to teach on campus, research in their careers and speak about in public.'
Ryan Quinn claimed, 'Dozens of U.S. faculty members have been investigated, suspended, or fired for speaking out about Israel and Palestine since the war began Oct. 7. Free speech and academic freedom advocates have been disturbed by the spate of probes and punishments for faculty members' social media posts, rally speeches, defenses of encampments and other out-of-classroom activities.' Dr. Anne D'Aquino, an adjunct professor at DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, has been claimed to be an example of overt academic repression when she was fired after offering an optional assignment to her students in which she asked them to explore the biological and health impacts the war in Gaza has had on Palestinians. D'Aquino taught Health 194, Human Pathogens and Defense, across from the now torn-down pro-Palestinian protest encampment on her university's quad. The professor defended her assignment on the basis that the course she was teaching is intended to explore microbiology research and its relevance to everyday life and current events.
Those who believe the pro-Palestinian protests should be allowed claim D'Aquino's case represents the sort of academic discrimination encouraged by protest bans.It has also been claimed that attempts have been made to limit the publication of scholarly articles critical of Israel's actions against Palestine. Editors of Columbia Law Review, a prominent journal run by students from the prestigious university's law school, have claimed the publication's board of directors urged them on June 2, 2024, to refrain from publishing an article critical of Israel. After the students published the article online the following day, the board had the law review's website taken down. Though the website was subsequently restored, and the article published, critics claim the attack on the website is symptomatic of current attempts to restrict academic freedom. In a comment published in The Conversation, on June 12, 2024, Neal H. Hutchens, Professor of Higher Education at the University of Kentucky, stated, 'If the students' allegations are accurate, the board violated widely accepted standards of academic freedom in higher education that scholars see as critical. Academic freedom is part of what makes colleges and universities places where new views and knowledge can be shared and where accepted ideas can be questioned.'
Claims have been made that university academics worldwide have faced penalties up to dismissal for expressing pro-Palestinian views. In an opinion piece written by Natasha Lennard and published in The Intercept on May 16, 2024, it was claimed, 'Since the beginning of Israel's war on Gaza, academics in fields including politics, sociology, Japanese literature, public health, Latin American and Caribbean studies, Middle East and African studies, mathematics, education, and more have been fired, suspended, or removed from the classroom for pro-Palestine, anti-Israel speech.' Leonard further claimed, 'These educators have little in common. They live in different cities and states and hail from different countries. Some have been teaching in their institutions for decades, some were newly hired. Some taught at private universities, others public. They have varying degrees of job security, from a tenured professor to the most precarious adjunct contracts. And they are racially, ethnically, religiously, age, and gender diverse.'
It has been reported that in Israel, Hebrew University academic, Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian, was arrested for expressing pro-Palestinian views. In a New York Times article published on June 16, 2024, it was stated that right-wing members of Israel's Parliament had called for her to be fired and for the police to investigate her for incitement. It was also claimed that economic sanctions against Hebrew University had been called for to increase pressure on the university to remove her. On April 18, Israeli police detained the professor at her home in East Jerusalem, and then overnight in a prison cell. It is claimed that over the next few weeks Israeli authorities questioned Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian for more than 17 hours. The professor has stated, 'Violent extremism has been allowed to overtake and politicize the criminal justice and academic systems and has reached new levels in my case.'
3. The level of disruption caused by pro-Palestinian protesters has been exaggerated
Those who oppose the banning of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses claim that the degree of violence and disruption occurring during these protests has been exaggerated.
It has been stated that the pro-Palestinian protests on campuses in the United States have generally been non-violent. Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled), an independent non-profit that tracks political violence and political protests around the world, found that 97 percent of campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza that have taken place in America have been peaceful. An analysis of 553 American campus demonstrations nationwide between 18 April and 3 May found that fewer than 20 resulted in any serious interpersonal violence or property damage, according to statistics from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled).
It has further been claimed that media coverage of pro-Palestinian protests in the United States has been biased and has tended to misrepresent them as violent. On May 6, 2024, Aljazeera published a comment by Rami G Khouri, nonresident Senior Fellow at the Arab Center Washington. Khouri claims, 'The mainstream [United States] media has widely condemned students and accused them of using "hate speech and hate symbols", endorsing terrorism, advocating for Israel's destruction, resorting to anti-Semitic slurs, and threatening and frightening Jewish students.' He notes some media have referred to these protesters as 'Nazi mobs'.
On May 22, 2024, Crikey published a report by Dr Ben Eltham, a Lecturer in Media and Communications at Monash University's School of Media, Film and Journalism, in which he disputed the way in which these protests have been presented in the Australian media. Eltham has stated, 'I've been struck by the disconnect between the protests and the media coverage of them. Since the first Australian encampments began in April, the majority of reporting has painted them as chaotic, hateful and violent, and focused on contested interpretations of protesters' chants rather than the issues about which they are protesting...A careful scan of the public record suggests pro-Palestine protesters have been overwhelmingly non-violent.'
Eltham suggests that the reporting of these protests in Australia has followed a well-established pattern of media representation which tends to frame most protests through the lens of violent confrontation. Referring to one Monash protest which Eltham claims was peaceful he describes the media coverage as 'using language like "clashes", "confrontations", "chaos" and "tensions".' It has also been claimed that where pro-Palestinian protesters became violent, this was often in response to aggressive police attempts to disperse them. Nearly half of the campus protests that Acled categorized as violent involved protesters fighting with law enforcement during police interventions. Acled's analysis of more than 550 campus protests found only two instances of property damage serious enough to class the demonstration as violent: protesters at Portland State University who shattered glass and damaged furniture and computers during their occupation of a campus library, and protesters at Columbia University who broke windows during their occupation at a campus building.
Despite the lack of violence by most protesters, commentators have noted the force used by United States police in removing them from university campuses. A Vox report published on May 3, 2024, stated, 'For weeks, police have been arriving on college campuses from New York to California at the behest of university officials, sweeping pro-Palestinian protests and arresting more than 2,100 people. They've come in riot gear, zip-tied students and hauled them off, and in some high-profile instances, acted violently... Nearly 50 universities have called the authorities to intervene, and students and faculty have been beaten, tear gassed, and shot at with rubber bullets by police.' The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has indicated he is troubled by 'a series of heavy-handed steps' taken by some universities in the United States to disperse and dismantle Gaza war protests. The High Commissioner further stated, 'I am concerned that some of law enforcement actions across a series of universities appear disproportionate in their impacts.'
4. Pro-Palestinian protesters are not anti-Semitic
Those who support pro-Palestinian protesters remaining on university campuses argue that most of these protesters are not anti-Semitic. They claim there is a distinction between those who oppose the way Israel has conducted the Israel-Hamas War and those who are anti-Semitic.
The protesters claim that opposition to the state of Israel and the way it has treated Palestinians is not anti-Semitism - an irrational hatred directed at Jewish people as an ethnic, cultural, and religious group. Supporters of the protesters argue that there is a difference between being opposed to the policies of a particular state and being prejudiced against a racial or cultural group. This point has been made by Jeffrey C. Isaac, Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, who describes himself as 'a Jewish-American political science professor who... has taught at one of the country's major public universities, Indiana University, for almost four decades.' Professor Isaac maintains that most of those protesting the actions of the Israeli state against Palestinians are being mischaracterised as antisemitic. He writes, 'Most of the clamor about "anti-Semitism" on American campuses today is not about hatred of Jews or violence against Jews. It is about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the range of emotional, intellectual, and political responses to it.'
The same point has been made by Ajay Skaria who teaches South Asian Politics and History at the University of Minnesota. Skaria has stated, 'In US universities at least, the protests are not, barring some rare exceptions, driven by anti-Semitism... [though] they consider themselves fiercely anti-Zionist, these students come down sharply on positions that bear any whiff of anti-Semitism.' Skaria has explained the difference as 'while anti-Semitism is a hostility directed against Jews because of their religious or cultural identity, anti-Zionism is an opposition to Zionism as an ideology that is racist because it claims the Israeli state and the land of Israel-Palestine exclusively for the Jewish community.' Around the world numerous Jewish students have joined the pro-Palestinian university protests. They have declared they are acting because of ethical and political objections to the actions of the state of Israel, not because of prejudice against Jewish culture or ethnicity. One unnamed student interviewed at the University of Southern California told a CBS News reporter, 'As an Israeli Jewish person, I feel that it is absolutely crucial for me to stand with Muslim friends and peers, especially when they are being accused of antisemitism simply for criticizing my government.'
Ben-Menachem, a Jewish American who joined the protests at Columbia, has said he watched with amazement as the media and political figures have attempted to characterise the protests as antisemitic and dangerous, despite Jewish student organisations playing a central role in them. Another Jewish American student, Benjamin Kersten, a PhD candidate in art history at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), stated, 'As a Jewish student who participated in the UCLA Palestine solidarity encampment, I find the charge that the encampments are antisemitic to not only be misleading but dangerous... It is not antisemitic to criticize the state of Israel or to reject Jewish supremacy. The pervasive misidentification of antisemitism hinders our ability to understand and dismantle real antisemitism...' 5. Most pro-Palestinian protesters are not supporting terrorism
Those who favour pro-Palestinian protests continuing on university campuses claim that they are not an expression of support for terrorism. They argue the protests are against the actions of the Israeli government and an attempt to protect Palestinian civilians. They are not meant to support the terrorist actions of Hamas.
The political leaders of Palestine, Hamas, have been internationally condemned as a terrorist group for their violent attacks on Israeli civilians. However, supporters of pro-Palestinian demonstrations argue it is possible to be part of these protests without endorsing Hamas. They claim that most protesters are seeking better treatment for Palestinians, not supporting the use of terrorist action to advance the Palestinian cause. This was explained by the Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (London), Dame Lynne Owens. In an open letter published on October 12, 2023, the Deputy Commissioner stated, 'Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation under UK law...Anyone who expresses support for these organisations, waves their flag, holds up a placard or directly expresses support for them is committing an offence and can expect to be dealt with.' However, the Deputy Commissioner went on to explain. 'What we cannot do is interpret support for the Palestinian cause...as automatically being support for Hamas or any other proscribed group, even when it follows so soon after an attack carried out by that group and when to many the link seems indisputable. An expression of support for the Palestinian people more broadly, including flying the Palestinian flag, does not, alone, constitute a criminal offence.'
A similar position has been put by Maria Rashed, a Palestinian Christian living in Israel. In an opinion piece printed in The Guardian on October 22, 2023, Rashed stated, 'One can support Palestinians' right to resist and end the occupation without supporting Hamas.' Rather than being a supporter of Hamas, Rashed opposes them, stating 'I do not condone violence in the name of religion. I cannot endorse or identify with Hamas's attack on innocent civilians on 7 October. Despite being a proud Palestinian who supports oppressed communities and actively speaks out against Israeli occupation and colonialism, this attack on Israeli civilians does not align with my beliefs - I condemn killing civilians and deeply mourn the loss of lives among Palestinians and Israelis.' Rashed is concerned to break the link many in the media claim exists between support for Palestinians and support for Hamas.
Activists protesting in support of Palestinians also object to the assumption that their attempts to draw attention to suffering in Palestine mean they are supporters of Hamas, the terrorist group who are the political and military leaders of Palestine. Momodou Taal, a second-year PhD student at Cornell University in New York, is a member of the college's Coalition of Mutual Liberation, a group that supports pro-Palestine rallies. He has been disturbed by being repeatedly asked to declare his opposition to Hamas and objects to what he believes is the assumption that he supports the group. Taal has stated, 'I can say clearly, categorically, I abhor the killing of all civilians no matter where they are and who does it. I love life. I don't love death...Why is it the association because I'm a Muslim and I'm a Black person, I have to condemn a proscribed terrorist organization before having an opinion on genocide?'
A similar position was put by a first-year student at the University of Pennsylvania who asked to remain anonymous when interviewed by CNN as he was afraid of reprisals against him. He is a supporter of the pro-Palestinian protests but objects to the assumption that he supports the terrorist acts of Hamas. He grew up in Northern Ireland and said he had learned through his father what it was like to be discriminated against and called a terrorist for opposing an 'oppressive regime'. He stated, 'You see thousands of children dying, it doesn't take a terrorist to want to support them. It doesn't take someone with bad will to support life.'