Australia: Melbourne University threatens about 20 pro-Palestinian students with disciplinary action

About 20 students at the University of Melbourne (UofM), one of Australia’s most prestigious universities, were threatened with disciplinary action this week for their involvement in an on-campus student camp against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel, supported by imperialist governments, including Australia.

Gaza Genocide Protest Camp at the University of Melbourne

The move at UofM is the latest in a series of coordinated attacks by university management, corporate media and the political establishment in Australia on students’ right to protest and free speech on campus.

UofM leadership is trying to discipline its students a month after an on-campus encampment was closed. This has a vindictive and intimidating nature to it, given that any claims by event management related to the encampment are a thing of the past and have no current impact on campus.

The UofM movement is part of a broader repressive action. It follows the expulsion of two pro-Palestinian students by the Australian National University (ANU) in the capital, Canberra, and the forced closure of a student encampment and defamation of students at the University of Sydney.

According to Ageother Melbourne universities also sent abuse notices to students involved in anti-genocide protests. Monash University reportedly sent nine, while La Trobe University and Deakin University each sent two.

Working with the government, university authorities are trying to make an example of students to dissuade the wider public from fighting genocide and war, a point underlined by the federal Labor government’s hysterical campaign against peaceful protests at electoral offices in recent weeks.

A dangerous precedent is being set in the harassment of students.

Peaceful, pro-Palestinian protesters are vilified and the democratic rights of anyone who opposes genocide and war are trampled on. In other countries, such as the US, Germany and Canada, peaceful anti-genocide protests on campuses were met with brutal police repression and brutal arrests of thousands of students.

International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) — the youth and student arm of the Socialist Equality Party — is calling for the immediate withdrawal of misconduct charges against pro-Palestinian students at UofM and other universities. IYSSE is demanding the reversal of disciplinary measures already taken against students who protested the genocide.

More than 18,000 people have now signed an updated petition calling for the disciplinary charges against UofM students to be dropped.

The petition states:

We, the community, condemn these threats and intimidation by the University of Melbourne against the brave students and staff who are peacefully demanding exposure and severing of the University of Melbourne’s links with arms manufacturers supplying the Israeli Occupation Forces.

The document indicates that students are at risk of failing their subjects and being expelled from school.

The decision of the university administration was made about a month after the end of the camp at UofM by mutual agreement between the management and the camp organizers, Unimelb for Palestine (UM4P).

UM4P released a statement Thursday about the university’s disciplinary notice, saying the anti-genocide students were issued “general misdemeanor” notices for their role in occupying the Arts West building on campus in late May.

According to UM4P, the university took into account CCTV footage and location tracking of students while they were using the university’s Wi-Fi network when gathering evidence against the students. If these reports are true, they represent a serious violation of student privacy by the university.

It also raises questions about the potential involvement of the state in supporting the university administration in monitoring student activity on campus.

Michael Wesley, UofM’s deputy provost (global, culture and engagement), threatened such attacks on protesting students a month ago.

In a leaked video produced after the Arts West occupation began, Wesley declared, “red lines have been crossed.” In the video, which circulated on social media, Wesley baselessly claimed that student protesters were “intimidating” people and “causing significant damage.”

Wesley menacingly stated that police would be regularly patrolling the campus and that “ending the protest” would be a “very serious operation.”

Although the camp has long since been shut down without police involvement, Wesley’s ominous threats underscore an attitude that has spilled over into the university’s “significant actions” to punish students who allegedly crossed “red lines.”

University administrators at UofM and other campuses are attacking students’ free speech in concert with the highest levels of the state.

Their actions are part of the virulent campaign against the camps led by Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Last month, he called peaceful student protests “divisive” displays of “hatred.” Albanians have declared that protests against genocide have “no place” in society.

These declarations clearly apply beyond campus. Indeed, in an effort to prevent broader involvement of staff and youth in the genocide protests, the UofM administration has placed notices “prohibiting members of the public from protesting on campus.”

The attacks on the democratic rights of students in Australia are driven by the same pro-war agenda, as the Albanian government not only supports the mass killings in Gaza but also the related build-up of militarists in the region against China.

Student camps have been established on more than a dozen campuses. Now only a few remain, including those at ANU, the University of Newcastle and the University of Tasmania.

The closure of the camps was directly organized or condoned by middle-class leaders of campus protest movements. They have either openly cooperated with university management to enter into written agreements that do not commit universities to anything, or they have refused to engage more broadly in the fight against attacks on students, including their members.

At the University of Melbourne itself, the agreement reached between UM4P and the university administration to end the encampment last month was the first of its kind in the country. In response to the camp organizers’ demand to end the protest, the university agreed to disclose some of its research links with arms companies. The administration said it would not disclose anything it deemed to conflict with “confidentiality” or “national security” considerations. The camp organizers touted it as a “victory.”

This week, the university administration disclosed some ties to weapons manufacturers. Nine projects were listed, involving five different companies (Boeing, Lockheed Martin and General Electric from the United States; Mitsubishi from Japan; Nova Systems from Australia). Three of these projects have no dollar value due to “confidentiality.”

In addition, the university says the Australian Department of Defense will receive $27.8 million in further research funding over a number of years, and the US Department of Defense will receive $15.4 million. None of these amounts are itemized.

The university also makes no declarations that projects with defense companies or government departments will be suspended or stopped. Indeed, this was not part of the agreement. The university was only forced to publicly list Some from what has been open knowledge for the last decade or more: that the UofM, like all universities in Australia, is closely linked to the rise of militarism.

Students must learn from these experiences.

The Gaza genocide and the broader war drive of imperialism cannot be stopped by pathetic appeals to universities, any more than they can be stopped by appeals to governments.

The ineffective method of pressuring the Labor government to stop supporting genocide has been put forward during eight months of protests by the Greens and various pseudo-left groups such as Socialist Alternative and Solidarity.

This perspective has only led to the subordination of workers and youth to a government that continues to support mass murder while glossing over the connection between the Gaza genocide and the broader outbreak of militarism, including hostilities against China and a US-NATO proxy conflict with Russia that threatens nuclear catastrophe.

To fight genocide and attacks on democratic rights, students and youth must turn to the working class and fight to mobilize its enormous social and political power. Such a turn must include the political struggle against the Labor Party, the imperialist war on a global scale and the capitalist system itself, which is responsible for the descent into barbarism.