Defund universities that allow anti-Semitism, says Australia envoy

Australia’s anti-Semitism envoy has called for the cancellation of funding to universities that tolerate anti-Jewish sentiment and the screening of migrants for anti-Semitic views under a sweeping plan presented to the government.

Jillian Segal made the recommendations in a report published on Thursday amid elevated concerns about anti-Semitism following a spate of violent incidents, including an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue last week.

“Countering antisemitism must not be the burden solely of the Jewish community; nor can we expect governments alone to fight antisemitism on Australians’ behalf,” Segal, who was appointed as Australia’s first special envoy on anti-Semitism last year, said in a foreword to the report.

“Community leaders, educators, businesses, media, creatives and citizens must unite. It is a responsibility shared by all Australians.”

Segal’s report said the envoy would work with the government and educational authorities to reverse a “dangerous trajectory” of normalised anti-Semitism at many universities, and withhold funding to institutions that engage in anti-Semitic “or otherwise discriminatory” speech and actions.

To guard against the “importation of hate”, non-citizens involved in anti-Semitism should face deportation, the report said, with the envoy to provide education on anti-Semitism to immigration officials to assist them with screening for visa applicants with hateful views.

Segal will also monitor media organisations “to encourage accurate, fair and responsible reporting”, advocate for “best practice regulation of online content,” and work with authorities to ensure artificial intelligence does not amplify anti-Semitic content, the report said.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who leads the centre-left Labor Party, welcomed the report and said the government would “carefully consider” its recommendations.

He said some of the proposals could be implemented quickly and others “will require work over a period of time”.

“This is something that the government needs to work with civil society on at all levels … to make sure anti-Semitism is pushed to the margins,” Albanese told a news conference.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a peak body representing Jewish communities across the country, praised the “well considered” plan and endorsed its recommendations.

“Its release could not be more timely given the recent appalling events in Melbourne,” ECAJ President Daniel Aghion KC said in a statement.

“The actions which the plan call for are now urgently needed.”

However, the Jewish Council of Australia, a progressive group that has been critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, warned that the plan risked “undermining Australia’s democratic freedoms, inflaming community divisions, and entrenching selective approaches to racism that serve political agendas”.

“This document reads more like a blueprint for silencing dissent rather than a strategy to build inclusion,” Jewish Council of Australia executive officer Max Kaiser said in a statement, criticising the report’s “vague” language and use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism.

“Consistent with her past statements erroneously linking antisemitic attacks with Palestine solidarity protests, Segal seems fixated on driving a pro-Israel narrative and repressing legitimate criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” Kaiser added.