Gaza Solidarity Encampments across the colony have exposed our corrupt, wage-theft-riddled, million-dollar-VC-run universities as the hypocritical institutions they are.
Writings from the ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment – Part 3
This is Part Three of a six-part series of articles from the ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Apart from the Introduction by Emeritus Professor Tamara Jacka, all articles are written by student members of the encampment. To protect the authors against identification, we have kept them anonymous.
Lack of integrity and ethics in our higher education institutions
Universities in Australia have previously been exposed for several of their exploitative unethical actions: using international students as cash cows, wage theft of millions of dollars trying to run classes with minimum pay and maximum profits, and outrageous vice chancellor salaries that most of the time exceed the salary of our Prime Minister. And now, the Gaza solidarity encampments that have popped up all over the Australian colony have further exposed the limitations of university managements and their lack of integrity and ethics. They have clearly shown the incompetence and incapability of university managements to interact with and to have a political conversation with their staff and students. In nearly every state around the country, university managements have succumbed to political lobbying and pressure and have failed to enter into dialogue with their staff and students about what our universities’ role should be in our society.
Discussions around the encampments have shown that our universities not only invest in fossil fuels and unethical mining, they also invest in the manufacturing of weapons used in genocide and ecocide in Gaza and around the world. The students on our campuses have been pushing universities to invest ethically and to not contribute to climate change and wars. However, not only do they resist this pressure, our university managements, who act as if they are CEOs to private corporations, nevertheless fail year after year to keep our universities afloat and are constantly vulnerable to government policies and outside pressures.
Despite us paying university managers so much (often they are the highest paid members of our university communities), this managerial class continues to fail in managing our public institutions. Of course, the Labor government’s policies and limited funding to the higher education sector don’t help. But you would think that a VC paid at least a million AUD a year (as most Australian VCs are) would find ways to keep the institution afloat without the unending cycles of redundancies and austerity measures that dominate our university calendars.
Additionally, rather than enabling universities to function as they should as crucibles of innovation and creativity, where students’ political ideals, activities and movements are nurtured, these highly paid incompetent managers ‘lead’ our universities by succumbing to the pressure of politicians like Josh Frydenberg and other lobbyists. The Zionist lobby, in particular, has been frantically trying to pressure university managements to quell protest, call the police and treat peacefully protesting students as terrorists. University managers succumb to this pressure, despite knowing all too well that Zionists have long lost the support of young students, who can see the state of Israel and its vicious military for what it is. This is happening not only in the Australian colony but all over the world.
At the Australian National University, management has very openly racially vilified camp participants by claiming that the encampment “smells”; a racist trope that we often see used in unsophisticated racist settings. Noting the freezing temperature in Canberra since the start of the encampment, and the fact that we are constantly trying to keep the protesters from having frost bite from the cold weather, we are not really sure where the smell management is complaining about is coming from other than considering the student participants as lefty Arab supporters who stink.
The discrimination against Palestinian, Arab and anti-Zionist Jewish students by ANU management was further exposed when the ANU management were dragged to a senate estimate hearing on the 6th of June 2024. ANU management, through its actions and statements to senate estimates, has proven that it does not believe that anti-Zionist Jewish students and staff, and, in particular, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students, are worthy of support on campus.
By expecting Jewish communities to be monoliths that support the state of Israel unconditionally, universities in Australia are in fact not only being racist but also perpetuating anti-Semitic tropes. Jewish communities, like any other communities, are diverse. We see that on campuses across the country, where Jewish students and staff are supporting the Gaza solidarity encampments and their demands, while being vilified and attacked by right-wing conservatives.
The ignorance and incompetence of the university managerial class are further highlighted by some of the discussions with ANU management around whether a possible genocide should be considered ‘social harm.’ ANU managers cannot agree on what ‘social harm’ in their current Socially Responsible Investment Policy includes. When ANU students are calling them out for being complicit in genocide in Gaza, ANU management states that the definition of ‘social harm’ in their policy is not clear. This claim further exposes the serious lack of integrity and ethics of our university management.
Only yesterday, the International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end. Leading Australian Judge Hilary Charlesworth, who used to be a Distinguished Professor at the ANU, sits on the court and her judgement is worth a close reading by Australia’s VCs. However, Australian universities on stolen land of course have no problems continuing to work with and build collaborations with Israeli universities on stolen settlements themselves. This blatant disregard for international law and human rights underscores the need for our academic institutions to critically reassess their partnerships and align their practices with ethical and just principles.
In sum, Gaza Solidarity Encampments across the colony have exposed our corrupt, wage-theft-riddled, million-dollar-VC-run universities as the hypocritical institutions they are. Our universities are institutions run by corrupt, overpaid, incompetent racists, that stand on stolen land and are dependent on unethical investments and an underpaid and overworked workforce.
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