Jason Clare wants advice, quite a bit of advice on what to do about Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal’s recommendations on universities. Universities Australia says the system has it covered and ATEC will help.
In her report to the Prime Minister, Ms Segal proposed the Envoy report each university’s response to antisemitism and work with TEQSA against “a dangerous trajectory” in courses and on campuses. She also recommended the Government withhold funding from universities that fail to act against it.
The Education Minister’s initial response was that the Government, “will carefully consider the report recommendations and consult with key stakeholders.” He also mentioned the Race Relations Commission report on universities.
A week on, however Mr Clare announced he wanted to take way wider advice, mentioning on ABC TV:
- The Student Ombudsman: “that provides a vehicle for students to make complaints, whether it's about antisemitism, Islamophobia or sexual assaults, or any concerns that they've got about the way their university has dealt with them”
- TEQSA: “it has the power to put conditions on universities or to go to court and issue fines. I think there's an open question there about whether TEQSA needs more powers in this area”
- Special Envoy Combating Islamophobia: “we want to see their report as well”
He also mentioned his own Expert Council on University Governance.
Universities Australia proposes the same approach, involving just about all the same organisations, especially TEQSA, although it does add additional oversight, proposing the yet-to-be-legislated Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) get involved. A core ATEC task will be mission-based annual agreements with each individual university and UA suggests the process can “ensure that universities deal with specific issues that arise on their campuses.”
And that should do it, UA concludes, “It is not clear that additional mechanisms dealing only with antisemitism are helpful in this context.”
