Education Minister pressured as Israel lobby attacks academic freedom

Federal Labor’s Minister for Education, Jason Clare, is under increasingly vociferous pressure to show support for academic freedom and resist pressure to silence pro-Palestinian scholars.

A report in The Australian claimed that Mr Clare had called for the Australian Research Council (A.R.C.) to investigate Macquarie University scholar Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah’s four-year grant for research into Arab/Muslim/Australian social justice activism. This followed another article in a series of attacks on Abdel-Fattah which quoted the A.R.C. as having ‘significant concerns’ about her use of the grant.

A spokesperson for Jason Clare confirmed the request:

“Grant recipients are required to follow the rules set out in their grant agreements. The Government has asked the A.R.C. Board to ensure that this is the case.”

Handballing that “requirement”, a spokesperson for the A.R.C. said:

“[The organisation is] engaging directly with Macquarie University to ensure, as the administering organisation, it is properly managing the grant and is actively complying with the terms of the agreement.”

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According to Western Sydney University Professor of Law, Mike Head, the accusation that she had not followed the rules (which prompted Jason Clare’s direction to the A.R.C.) was based on remarks Abdel-Fattah made at a Queensland University conference:

‘...she explained that she had substituted the A.R.C. grant’s requirement to hold an academic conference on her research with an online “Jars for Preservation” workshop, to which she invited women from different backgrounds to send statements.’

Head and members of Macquarie University’s “Rank-and-File” Committee have documented the campaign against Abdel-Fattah, which began in February last year when ‘calls were made in the media for her to be removed as a speaker at an international woman’s day event and from a book award judging panel’.

In April, Abdel-Fattah's support for a pro-Palestine encampment at Sydney University resulted in The Australian publishing the accusation that she was ‘indoctrinating children with vile, hateful, antisemitic slogans and chants’.

Last month, Indigenous academic Marcia Langton singled out Abdel-Fattah in an opinion piece for The Australian, saying that university leaders are ‘misusing academic freedom to defend antisemitism’.

A group called Scholars Against Political Repression has now organised an open letter to Mr Clare, condemning his decision to request the A.R.C. investigate Randa Abdel-Fattah’s grant funding.

The letter, published on the Overland journal website, stated:

...academics who have criticised Israel’s conduct in Gaza have faced relentless attacks...

Dr Abdel-Fattah, an award-winning author and leading Palestinian scholar, has been subjected to consistent attacks and attempts to destroy her career, including by Shadow Minister Sarah Henderson who has been campaigning for the A.R.C. to cancel her research fellowship since April 2024.

The role of the Education Minister should be to defend the independence of the A.R.C., not to interfere with its operations on the basis of political campaigns.

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The open letter has been signed, to date, by 400 academics. It asks Mr Clare ‘[to guarantee] the independence of the Council and [to defend] the academic freedom of scholars in the face of political attacks’.

The Jewish Council of Australia’s chair, Dr Max Kaiser, has also issued an open letter to Mr Clare, urging him ‘to reject the coordinated and malicious campaigns by Israel lobby groups to interfere with the academic freedom of Palestinian and First Nations scholars’.

At the same time, members of the Macquarie University Rank-and-File Committee issued a statement supporting Abdel-Fattah.

The Committee stated:

‘To call for the abolition of the Zionist state, based on ethnic discrimination and the violent dispossession of Palestinians and an end to the Israeli regime’s U.S.-armed atrocities is not anti-Jewish.’

The Scholars against Political Repression open letter to Jason Clare notes the ‘terrible irony’ of Dr Abdel-Fattah’s speech at an anti-racist conference sponsored by the First Nations Carumba Institute at the Queensland University of Technology being used to attack not only her but also Professor Chelsea Watego, who is also facing accusations of antisemitism.

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The open letter states:

‘Such attacks conflate legitimate critiques of Israel and the political ideology of Zionism with antisemitism, a move that must be understood for what it is: the weaponisation of anti-racist discourse in the service of political repression and with the aim of silencing Palestinian voices.’

Professor Head has written about the most recent ‘assault on anti-war dissent, freedom of speech and basic democratic rights’, which intensified at last week’s Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, chaired by Labor MP Josh Burns.

Grilling the Macquarie University vice-chancellor, Bruce Dowton, Mr Burns asked if “disciplinary action” had been taken against Abdel-Fattah:

“Have they been removed as a staff member from the university?”

Professor Head writes:

‘Labor is now intensifying moves similar to those in the U.S., where the fascistic Trump Administration is going beyond the Biden White House to demand nothing less than the suppression of all political opposition on university campuses and the deportation of students who have taken part in anti-genocide demonstrations.’