A right-wing backlash to Sydney University’s Gaza Solidarity Camp is in full swing. The camp, established on 23 April and inspired by similar encampments at US universities, is calling for the university to cut ties with weapons companies and Israeli academic institutions—very reasonable demands in the context of the genocide in and destruction of the Gaza Strip.
Yet Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott has sent an email to all students and staff alleging that the camp is responsible for “unacceptable violations” of the student code of conduct. These include accusations that members of the camp graffitied offensive slogans on the walls of the quadrangle building and that a non-student supporter of the camp spat at a security guard. 
No evidence has been provided to substantiate the allegations. According to student activists, the university’s security guards, who patrol the camp 24/7, have acknowledged that the encampment had nothing to do with graffiti in the Quad. 
Scott’s email, which claims that police are investigating the encampment, marks a significant change in tone from the university administration. 
“Initially, management emphasised that we have the right to protest peacefully on campus”, Students’ Representative Council Vice-President Deaglan Godwin told Red Flag. “Now, they are trying to claim that our protest is responsible for harassment of students and staff. We’re concerned that they are looking for an excuse to shut it down.”
The university’s attitude shift is perhaps related to the expansion of student encampments across the country, including at universities in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and Wollongong. As the student movement has grown, so too has the reaction from right-wing media and politicians, who have, like their counterparts in the United States, put university administrations under increasing pressure. 
In a recent interview with right-wing radio presenter Ray Hadley, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called the protests racist and anti-Semitic. Hadley went so far as to claim that they were the “same type of thing” as the 1938 Kristallnacht Nazi pogrom in Germany, when Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, and hundreds were killed.
Liberal media outlets have mirrored the political right’s narrative that the protest camps are anti-Semitic and must be shut down by university administrators. 
On Thursday, the Sydney Morning
Herald ran an opinion piece by Sydney University media lecturer Catharine Lumby, who, in a false and defamatory claim, said that protesters are calling for the expulsion of Jews from all of historic Palestine. 
Last week, the SMH carried the headline: “‘No-go areas for Jewish students’: Pro-Palestinian university camps grow”. This was despite numerous Jewish students participating in and leading the camps! If you want to talk about anti-Semitism, perhaps start with corporate press insinuations that Jewish students who oppose genocide aren’t “real Jews”.
Government ministers have also condemned the protests. Education Minister Jason Clare denounced a teach-in for children by Macquarie University academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, describing it as “shocking”. He said that it was “never okay to involve children in things like this”. Clare is a proponent of children participating in Anzac Day ceremonies, however. So it’s a case of “commemorating old war for empire = good education”, “opposing current genocide = horrible indoctrination”.
On Friday, Zionist groups Together with Israel and StandWithUs rallied at Sydney University against “anti-Israel extremists and Hamas supporters”. Their mobilisation of 200 people was <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/hundreds-rally-to-defend-sydney-university-gaza-solidarity-camp">far outnumbered by a rally</a> organised by Students for Palestine. 
“We will not be intimidated”, Yasmine Johnson, an anti-Zionist Jewish activist and convenor of Students for Palestine at the University of Technology, Sydney, told Red Flag. “We intend to continue our protest until our universities cut all ties with weapons companies and institutions complicit in genocide.
“In the last week, we have witnessed extreme police repression in the US. Although we are yet to witness anything like that in Australia, all the powerful institutions in our society—from the government to the media to our universities—would rather vilify our peaceful protest movement than engage in a debate about our demands.”

Simon Upitis

The right-wing backlash to Sydney University’s Gaza encampment

Activists from Students for Palestine Sydney University and the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) have established a protest camp outside the university’s iconic Quadrangle building, demanding that management cut ties with weapons companies and Israeli institutions. 
“Our university has signed a multi-million-dollar deal with Thales Australia, one of the largest weapons manufacturing companies in the world”, Jasmine Alrawi, Students for Palestine convenor, told Red Flag. “Student research is used by a company that has armed bloody regimes all around the world, including Israel. We are demanding that the university management cut all ties with Thales.”
A banner reading “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” hangs in front of about twenty tents, many of which have been spray painted with activist slogans and Palestinian flags. The names of the universities around the world that have established similar camps are written in chalk across the asphalt. A gazebo in the middle of the camp serves as a drop-off point for community supporters who have donated water, energy drinks, homemade meals, toothpaste and sunscreen, among other things.
On Wednesday, the day after the camp was established, hundreds of students joined a rally at which SRC Vice President Deaglan Godwin played a recorded message of support from students involved in a similar occupation at the New School in New York. Dozens of students have attended teach-ins held by activists and academics on topics including the first Intifada, past student movements and the real history of the ANZACs.
The occupation was inspired by students at Columbia University in New York, who began their own protest camp last Wednesday. The Columbia encampment’s key demands are for the university to disclose its financial investments in companies that profit from Israel’s occupation and genocide, and that it immediately divests from those companies. They also demand that it end its partnership programs with Israeli universities and the Tel Aviv Global Centre, a think tank.
Last week, Columbia President Minouche Shafik called in the cops to clear the protest camp, resulting in more than 100 arrests. Dozens of students have also been suspended by the university and locked out of their student accommodation. On Tuesday, after the camp was re-established, Columbia management threatened to call in the National Guard. 
This repression has sparked a wave of solidarity actions across America and internationally. Students from UC Berkley, NYU, Yale, MIT, Brown, Vanderbilt and others have set up their own protest camps. 
“We’ve been watching the developments in America around the clock for the last week, and felt it was time to take a similar stand at our own university”, Shovan Bhattarai, the SRC Education Officer, told Red Flag. 
“We are choosing to be on the right side of history. If the university tries to prevent us from calling out their complicity in Israel’s genocide, we will come back with more students and more disruption. Every student should join this campaign.”

Gaza solidarity encampment begins at Sydney University

University of Sydney staff went on strike for the fifth time in a year on 9 March. Tutors, lecturers and professional staff refused to teach classes, answer emails or attend to their regular duties for 24 hours. Eastern Avenue, normally a densely packed thoroughfare, was deserted. Fisher Library, where most students go to study on campus, was empty. The only activity occurred at the entrances to campus, where the National Tertiary Education Union had formed picket lines of staff, supported by students, to enforce the strike. 
The atmosphere on the picket lines was exuberant, with chants such as, “Turn back, go away, USyd is on strike today!”, and “Bullshit, come off it, our education is not for profit!” heard echoing across campus. At each picket line, workers spoke to the few students and staff that tried to enter the campus, convincing many to turn around.
“The strike was the most well-attended and observed of any in our campaign so far, because staff are incensed by the wage offer from management”, Alma Torlakovic, a member of the union’s branch committee, explained to Red Flag. 
“Their offer averages to about 3.3 percent per year, despite inflation currently running at 7.8 percent. The average admin worker would lose $100 a week, and we’d all end up losing thousands. We are demanding an annual pay rise of 5 percent, or inflation plus 1.5 percent, whichever is higher.” 
Oliver, who works as an education designer, said staff have been forced to work harder with larger class sizes in the past two years. “We know this institution made a billion dollars surplus in 2021, we know this institution can afford to pay its staff reasonably”, he said.
Job insecurity is rife at the university. Half of all employees are casual, or three-quarters if those on short-term contracts are included.
“The university knows [I love to teach], and they love to abuse it”, Omer, a casual tutor in the business school, told Red Flag on the picket line. He has been refused a conversion to permanency three times, even though he has taught at the university for more than eighteen years. The university treats him like a new employee every semester, making him resubmit his CV and documentation. 
“We are on strike because casuals are systematically exploited”, said Lucy, a member of the union’s branch committee and the USyd Casuals Network. “Amidst a cost-of-living and rental crisis, casuals are struggling to make ends meet. We need to end wage theft through backpaying casuals their stolen wages and setting in place solid ‘pay for all hours worked’ clauses. And we need enforceable conversion clauses to give casuals real pathways to permanent jobs.”
The university can choose not to renew the contracts of casual employees with almost zero notice. Fifty workers at the Student Centre were recently told that their contracts would not be renewed. Managers then said they would be hiring twenty full-time positions—which would be advertised both internally and externally—at the original pay grade, and then 30 more positions at a lower pay grade advertised only to current students and alumni. 
According to Kevin, who has worked at the Student Centre since 2021, management’s motives are transparent: students can be rostered on for minimum one-hour shifts, unlike the current employees, who must be rostered on for minimum three hours. 
Management also wants a reduction in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment targets. The union is demanding population parity.
Academic staff are determined to maintain a guaranteed research component in the agreement. Currently, Sydney University upholds the 40:40:20 system, which ensures that at least 40 percent of an academic’s workload is devoted to research, with the remainder split between teaching and administration. 
The union has already called further strike action for this semester: a 48-hour strike in week six and a 72-hour strike in week ten. 
The determination of the workers involved was summed up by Ryan, a striking PhD student: “What else are you going to do? Lie down and take it? If you don’t fight, you lose”.

The right-wing backlash to Sydney University’s Gaza encampment

Gaza solidarity encampment begins at Sydney University

Sydney University staff strike for a real wage rise

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