Swinburne University in Melbourne’s east has recently imposed shocking new measures to restrict the religious freedoms of Muslim students and community members on campus.
It began by enforcing swipe card access to the prayer room, restricting access to many who make use of the facility. The closest mosque is more than ten kilometres from Hawthorn, so for years local residents have gone to Swinburne to pray. Most other areas of campus, such as the library and student lounge, remain accessible to the public.
Alarms were installed on the prayer room doors to prevent them from being propped open. To escalate even further, the university sent in campus security to guard the entrance and then enter the room during prayers to check IDs.
Most insultingly, the university removed the Islamic Society’s chosen prayer leader and replaced them with its own hand-picked Imam, to run the large Friday payer. This was done with little to no consultation. As the Islamic Society pointed out in a statement, no other club or society on campus is subject to university appointment of their leaders or speakers.
Multiple Muslim students at Swinburne told Red Flag they believed the university’s crackdown on prayer room access, and imposition of the Imam, was at least partly because the student-led Friday prayers regularly discuss Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.
Things came to a head at a Friday prayer in October, when students prevented the university-appointed Imam from taking over and leading the prayer. The University responded by sending in security guards. Then, in a major crackdown, it announced that the prayer room would be closed for Friday prayers until students accepted the university-appointed Imam. The university also opened investigations into student prayer leaders.
Students defied this attack, holding protest-prayers outdoors on two consecutive Fridays that were attended by more than 200 students, staff and community members. Speakers at the prayers highlighted the rise in Islamophobia on campus and in broader society, spoke about links to the persecution of Muslims overseas and asserted the basic right of students to control their own affairs.
Thanks in part to pressure from the students, including a petition with hundreds of signatures, the university has since allowed use of the prayer room. However, restrictive swipe card access and surveillance from campus security remain.
These moves against the Muslim community are just one example of <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/universities-are-repressing-palestine-solidarity-activism">the repressive climate on university campuses today</a>. Swinburne is among the most repressive campuses in the country, calling the police against socialist and Palestine activists three times this year for the supposed crime of leafleting on campus without permission. Across the country, universities are responding to pro-Palestine activism with new restrictions on students’ rights. These attacks aren’t aimed exclusively at protest actions, but against pro-Palestine speech in general.

James Gallagher

Swinburne University cracks down on Muslim students’ rights

If the <a href="blank">Australian Financial Review’s Julie Hare</a> is to be believed, University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell has “joined an alliance of Greens, socialists and student unions calling for the reintroduction of free university”.
This is a surprising alliance, to say the least. Maskell receives an annual salary of $1.5 million, making him the highest paid of any Australian vice-chancellor. He sits on the board of the ASX-listed biotech company CSL. In his five years as vice-chancellor, he has overseen multiple restructures and wage theft scandals and the sacking of hundreds of staff. In 2020, he <a href="blank">publicly stated his scepticism</a> of lifesaving lockdowns, questioning whether the cost of keeping the elderly alive was in the overall public interest.
At his annual address to the university in June, Maskell proclaimed his support for free education, arguing to shift away from “the idea that university education is only of private benefit to individuals—not public benefit to societies”.
But any such pronouncements about the “public good” from bosses like Maskell must be scrutinised. Higher education is, after all, now a multibillion-dollar industry that has relentlessly imposed cost-cutting measures. It is an unlikely coincidence that these headline-grabbing comments were made just hours before hundreds of University of Melbourne staff began a 24-hour strike against Maskell’s refusal to grant <a href="blank">basic job security and a real pay rise</a> to his 12,000 employees.
If Maskell is so keen on equalising access to education, what exactly has he done to make tertiary education more affordable and accessible?
The university’s US-style “Melbourne Model”, in which students complete general undergraduate courses and then more specific postgraduate degrees to gain qualifications, has <a href="blank">massively increased student fees</a>. A standard five-year undergraduate medicine degree, for example, costs around $59,000 at other universities and can be covered by a HECS-HELP loan. At the University of Melbourne, a full-fee position in the Doctor of Medicine program costs $366,000, on top of the cost of an undergraduate degree. This exceeds the cap for government loans, meaning students pay a significant portion out of pocket.
Maskell drew on his own ascension from a working-class background to top university executive in his speech. Yet the university he runs has a terrible record of helping poor prospective students: between 2013 and 2019, the number of students enrolled from low-SES backgrounds increased by just 23, according to data from the National Centre for the Study of Equity in Higher Education. Providing scholarships based on need rather than performance or making student accommodation more affordable could easily make the university more accessible. 
Maskell’s call for free education has an important qualifier: it would be limited to domestic students. Profits in the higher education sector are based largely on fleecing international students for overpriced degrees. The University of Melbourne currently charges international students $100,000 to $180,000 for a bachelor’s degree. In 2020, it made $845 million from international student fees. 
Under Makell’s vision for a more “equitable” higher education system, the sector would continue to make massive profits from exporting education on the international market, while receiving more government funding for domestic students to offset the reduction in student fees. And where should this additional government revenue come from, according to Maskell? Not additional taxes on the corporations and billionaires who benefit from the supply of skilled graduates, but from increased taxes on graduates themselves. 
The university’s <a href="blank">submission</a> to the Labor government’s Australian Universities Accord notes that free education “seems extremely unlikely to gain government support”. This is correct—the ALP abandoned free education in the 1980s and has since increased student fees repeatedly. But if Maskell really is a believer in free (or even more affordable) education, he could easily slash student fees himself. To pay for it, perhaps he could sell some of the university’s 200 inner-city real estate assets, or cash in some of its multibillion-dollar investment portfolio. Tapping into 2021’s $584 million surplus could be a start.
But he will never consider doing any of that, because he’s the boss of a corporate university. He will always put profits above the interests of staff and students.

Is Australia’s highest paid university boss really for free education?

In 2020 the University of New South Wales (UNSW) partnered with universities around the world to form the <a href="https://www.universitiesforclimate.org/">International Universities Climate Alliance</a>. Ian Jacobs, vice-chancellor of UNSW, <a href="https://grandchallenges.unsw.edu.au/article/unsw-steps-action-climate-change">boasted </a>of the university’s “proud history of being at the forefront of climate science and renewable energy”.
Other members of the alliance include the University of Melbourne, <a href="https://research.unimelb.edu.au/">which claims</a> it is “developing real world solutions for a safer climate future”, and Monash University, <a href="https://www.monash.edu/about/strategic-direction/strategic-plan/global-challenges">which acknowledges</a> that “the response to climate change requires deep commitment through our education and research”.
It may come as a shock then to find out that UNSW, Melbourne and Monash all have extensive and well-documented partnerships with the fossil fuel industry. In fact, the entire higher education system is connected to the industry by a thousand threads.
These connections take many forms. First are the open, blatant partnerships between individual universities and mining companies. Mining corporations need graduates with the relevant skills and depend on research on how to exploit Earth’s natural resources most efficiently, and they’re willing to use some of their ample profits to pay for it. Universities, for their part, are more than happy to hitch themselves to the highest bidder.
The University of Sydney partners with Rio Tinto, which <a href="https://antar.org.au/issues/cultural-heritage/the-destruction-of-juukan-gorge/">destroyed a sacred Indigenous site</a> at Juukan Gorge in 2020. Together they operate the <a href="https://www.sydney.edu.au/engineering/our-research/robotics-and-intelligent-systems/australian-centre-for-field-robotics/mining.html">Rio Tinto Centre for Mine Automation</a>, working “towards realisation of fully-autonomous integrated mining operations”.
Woodside, one of Australia’s largest oil and gas producers, has a partnership with the University of Western Australia. Its then CEO Peter Coleman <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/30/university-of-western-australia-lashed-for-partnership-with-fossil-fuel-companies">described this, in 2019,</a> as playing a “crucial role in unlocking new gas resources off Western Australia’s north coast in support of our growth activities”.
Then there are the less open links. These take more digging to uncover. Follow the money, though, and you’ll find them. For a start, the Australian Research Council, the government body in charge of distributing research funding to universities, allocates significant amounts of public money to projects that benefit the fossil fuel industry.
That industry also directly funds universities to carry out research on its behalf. The <a href="https://www.acarp.com.au/">Australian Coal Industry’s Research Program</a> (ACARP) is a slush fund “100 percent owned and funded by all Australian black coal producers”. According to its 2022 <a href="https://www.acarp.com.au/Media/ACARP%202022%20Report.pdf">annual report</a>, ACARP was then overseeing more than $91 million invested across 277 research projects—171 of them in partnership with 15 different Australian universities.
University research teams make direct applications to ACARP on the basis that their research will benefit the coal industry, and successful projects are overseen directly by fossil fuel executives. Among the top recipients in 2022 were the University of Queensland, the University of Newcastle and UNSW—that great institution at the “forefront of climate science and renewable energy”—which had $8.7 million worth of coal industry-funded research under way.
Look into any university, and you will find a litany of scholarships, internships, research grants and careers expos—all funded by fossil fuel companies to enmesh themselves with the university sector. Laboratory spaces on campuses are regularly used by fossil fuel companies, and universities have research teams and business specialists at the ready to liaise with mining corporations in need of “end-to-end solutions”.
Funding also flows in the other direction. <a href="https://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/efforts/fossil-free-universities-australia?page=2">Universities hold, via their endowments, millions of dollars</a> of investments in the fossil fuel industry.
On top of all the money, there is direct, personal influence. There’s a revolving door between the senior ranks of universities and fossil fuel corporations. Almost every Australian university has a board member with a background in fossil fuels. The current chancellor of Monash University, Simon McKeon, is also a director at Rio Tinto, while the chancellor of Deakin University, John Stanhope, used to be a director at AGL, Australia’s largest carbon emitter. Monash University’s Department of Civil Engineering even has a <a href="https://www.monash.edu/engineering/departments/civil/about-us/our-people/resources-engineering-industry-advisory-committee">resources engineering industry advisory committee</a> stacked with current mining executives who have sway over the university’s research program.
This is all pretty out of step with what students, staff and the general public might expect from higher education institutions, and the universities clearly know it. Ties to fossil fuel companies are kept, for the most part, in the background, while publicly universities declare themselves to be world leaders in climate action, with campus carbon neutrality targets, sustainability departments in charge of composting and loud promotion of “green” research.
Why does the higher education sector, seen by many as a force for progress and enlightenment, have such deep connections to such a destructive industry? It’s not, as some might think, because it has somehow been “corrupted” by the influence of mining magnates on university governance. Nor is it just a matter of government policy.
In contrast to the “progressive” image they often foster, universities are fundamentally conservative institutions, geared to meet the needs of capitalism. They are funded by the government, and increasingly by businesses directly, to produce research, innovation and skilled workers required for a profitable and globally competitive capitalist economy. In Australia this means, among other things, serving the needs of the incredibly profitable fossil fuel industry.
This isn’t to say change is impossible. Victoria University in Toronto, Canada, recently announced its intention to divest fully from fossil fuels by 2030. This decision, however, came only <a href="https://thevarsity.ca/2023/04/13/victoria-university-agrees-to-divest-from-fossil-fuel-companies-by-2030/">after an 18</a><a href="https://thevarsity.ca/2023/04/13/victoria-university-agrees-to-divest-from-fossil-fuel-companies-by-2030/">-</a>day occupation of a university building by 200 climate activists. Similar announcements from universities across Australia and the US over the past few years show that climate activism on campuses can have an impact on the decisions of corporate universities.

Partners in pollution: Australian universities and the fossil fuel industry

Around 1,000 staff and supporters rallied at the University of Melbourne on 3 May in one of the largest strikes on any Australian university campus in many years. 
The four-hour stoppage was the first mass mobilisation in what is shaping up to be a serious battle between the National Tertiary Education Union and University of Melbourne management. 
More than 500 staff walked off the job, joining with students and supporters to march to Victorian Trades Hall for a cross-campus mass meeting.
Many work areas came out in greater numbers than in the last round of industrial action in 2018. There was palpable anger among striking staff. Popular chants included, “Casual work is not okay, UniMelb it’s time to pay!”
It’s easy to see why workers are angry: staff at the university have endured a constant wave of attacks over the past few years. But through mass meetings, workers have now developed an ambitious <a href="https://www.unimelbebanow.com/">list of demands</a> to push back against management and improve their working conditions.
Among the most important demands is an above-inflation pay increase of CPI plus 1.5 percent. University workers, like workers across the country, have taken a big hit to real wages over the past two years. In 2020, management <a href="https://redflag.org.au/node/7227">attempted to reverse a 2.2 percent pay rise</a>, which would have stolen a week’s wages from the university’s 12,000 employees. Later, the university posted a <a href="https://campusmorningmail.com.au/news/uni-melbourne-finances-stronger-than-they-look/">$178 million surplus</a>. So pay is front and centre as an issue.
Workers are also fighting for a mass conversion of casuals into secure employment, demanding that no less than 80 percent of staff be employed on continuing contracts. Currently, <a href="https://www.annualreport.about.unimelb.edu.au/_files/ugd/0ac31a_4d258468697b48f8a432cd7adfd47ab8.pdf?index=true">over half</a> of the workforce are kept on casual or short-term contracts—a staggering rate beaten only by the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2122/TrendsCasualEmployment#_Toc88649316">accommodation and food services industry</a>. Many staff have worked for the university for more than five years, yet remain in insecure work with no means to plan for their futures and are afraid to speak up because of the risk of not being rehired for the next semester.
Staff have also developed a simple yet popular twelve-word clause that is sure ruffling some feathers in the vice-chancellor’s office: “That there be no forced redundancies for the life of the agreement”.
There are few Australian universities that have as ruthlessly attacked their workforce as the University of Melbourne has over the past decade. Several major restructures have resulted in mass sackings, including the infamous 2014 <a href="https://redflag.org.au/node/5591">Business Improvement Program</a> that cut the jobs of 540 staff—at the time, the largest firing on an Australian campus. The university then sacked hundreds of workers in 2020 under the cover of the pandemic. Now staff are demanding some basic dignity: three years without any more sackings.
Buried under the demands is a battle for the heart of the university. Melbourne holds billions of dollars in assets and investments, and consistently rakes in yearly profits of hundreds of millions of dollars from exploiting staff and students. Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell is the <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/vice-chancellors-take-a-pay-cut-but-three-remain-in-1m-club-20210609-p57ziz.html">highest paid university boss in Australia</a>, “earning” $1.5 million a year. For staff, he has become a symbol of everything wrong with the university, delivering messages from his Parkville mansion (which the university pays for) on the need for everyone to make sacrifices.
Now there’s a fight brewing. Whose priorities will win out? The lives of staff and education of students, or the profits of the university bosses? 
“The staff at the university are the ones that make the university run. We’re the ones that provide students with education, so we deserve to be treated with dignity and respect”, a mathematics tutor said after the rally.
Particularly encouraging has been a fresh wave of rank-and-file organising, with networks of delegates and union activists expanding across some faculties. The basis for this was built through years of patient organising, particularly the casual workers’ campaign to expose the university’s systemic wage theft totalling <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/education/melbourne-uni-caught-out-for-underpaying-staff-yet-again-20230210-p5cjmo">more than $45 million</a>. Activists are taking inspiration and lessons from the recent strikes by workers at the University of Sydney and the massive strike at the University of California.
There is understanding among staff that winning their demands will require further, more disruptive, industrial action. The mass meeting of strikers on Wednesday voted unanimously to endorse a motion calling to “seriously consider escalating our industrial action” including “the possibility of an open-ended strike in June”.

Swinburne University cracks down on Muslim students’ rights

Is Australia’s highest paid university boss really for free education?

Partners in pollution: Australian universities and the fossil fuel industry

UniMelb staff start campaign with a strike

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