University of Sydney threatens to throttle student body for being pro-Palestine

University of Sydney (USyd) management is pursuing its anti-democratic practices, with a threat to defund the main student representative body and take over its election process.

It comes as NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese intervened in the recent Student Representative Council (SRC) elections, describing a pro-Palestine “Globalise the Intifada” ticket as antisemitic.

It appears that they lent on Usyd management, which is now threatening to defund and take over the SRC elections.

Honi Soit reported on September 28 that a source, “privy to proceedings of the University Senate”, said that Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott “raised the possibility of the university taking over responsibility for SRC elections”. It was an un-minuted segment of the meeting.

The recent SRC elections returned incumbent president Grace Street, who led the Grassroots ticket, which is also pro-Palestine. A referendum on the university cutting ties with Israel and weapons companies complicit in genocide was held at the same time and passed with about 90% of the vote.

Scott and Chancellor David Thodey released a statement claiming that the phrase “Globalise the intifada” is “hate speech” and “incit[es] violence”.

“We reject the contention that this phrase is innocuous,” Scott and Thodey said. “The deliberately provocative use of this slogan has caused — and continues to cause — overwhelming distress to members of our University community. These hateful campaigns must stop.” They also threatened to report students to “police, federal intelligence and counter terrorism agencies”.

USyd management has threatened and shut down anti-genocide activism on campus, including in May sending disciplinary letters to students for displaying the Handala symbol, a symbol of Palestinians’ struggle for freedom and self-determination.

It appointed pro-Israel academic Michael Abrahams-Sprod as its special advisor on antisemitism. Abrahams-Sprod is a leading member of the pro-Israel Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism (5A), which considers any pro-Palestine activism to be antisemitic.

The university has form. In 2024, it introduced its Campus Access Policy, curtailing freedom of speech and the right to protest on campus, following the successful Palestine solidarity encampment.

Management’s new threats have prompted the USyd SRC to publish an open letter; it quickly drew hundreds of signatories from students, staff, alumni, community members and several Palestine solidarity and student organisations.

It said management’s proposal contradicts a 2019 Model Code for the Protection of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom that USyd had adopted, which states that free speech — even when controversial, offensive, or challenging — “should not be subject to university penalties”.

It said management’s concerns are being “manufactured and weaponised to justify the vilification, defunding, and removal of the independence of the SRC once and for all”, and is another example of the university trying to “silence progressive voices”.

Further, the letter said ticket names that are “racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic or classist” are already prohibited. “Globalise the Intifada” is not a discriminatory phrase. “There is no room for doubt in understanding this phrase and campaign as one [which is] calling for justice and an end to violence.”

Timothy Roberts, president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, told Honi Soit that USyd’s proposal would create a “massive conflict of interest” if management writes the rules for the student representatives, “whose job it is to voice student concerns and to hold management accountable”.

The open letter calls for Usyd management to respect the independence of the SRC and that any review of its funding be conducted by an independent body.

It also calls for freedom of speech and political freedom on campus, for the Campus Access Policy to be scrapped and for management to act on the referendum that called on the university to cut ties with Israeli institutions and weapons companies.

[Sign the open letter here. Isaac Nellist is a student at the University of Sydney and is running for Socialist Alliance in Balmain in the March 2027 election.]