Jennifer Westacott to testify on university failures and the cost of silence
Professor Jennifer Westacott will appear before the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion on Thursday as part of hearings in Melbourne investigating how universities respond to threats faced by Jewish students and academics.
Below is an excerpt from his presentation.
I draw this presentation personally from my experience as chancellor of Western Sydney University, former chief executive of the Business Council of Australia and patron of the Dor Foundation. I do not speak on behalf of any institution. I speak as an Australian and as a leader; We are watching with increasing concern as something we once took for granted comes to light: that Jewish Australians can live, work and work in safety and dignity.
I want to be transparent about my personal reasons for speaking out because I think they are important to what the commission needs to understand. The early years of my life were characterized by disadvantage, family problems and occasional but often violent violence. My father was an anti-Semite. As a young child, I remember seeing on television an image of two men dressed in striped prison uniforms, hanging by their necks in a street. I must have been visibly upset because my father said to me: “Don’t worry, this only happens to Jews.” I could never shake the image of their faces. I also couldn’t shake the issue of my own silence as a child and then as a young adult. My fear and lack of understanding meant that even as I got older, I was afraid to challenge his views.
I now understand that my father’s views were commonplace then and remain so in some segments of our society today. The lesson I learned from this isn’t just personal. Silence, increased consent and comfort with inaction is how hate gains ground. That’s what happens after October 7, 2023, and that’s what this commission should help us never repeat again.
No university, no government department, no institution can be held solely responsible. This was a failure of the entire nation to grasp in real time the gravity of what was happening and to respond with the urgency and moral clarity it required.
With notable exceptions, our leaders could not agree. Universities did not unite around a common principle. With some honorable exceptions, business was largely quiet. Governments at both the federal and state levels have been slow to act decisively when necessary.
Through silence and a failure of moral clarity, we have allowed the legitimate grief and anger felt by many Australians about the events in Gaza to be used as justification, or at least cover, for anti-Semitic language, banners and acts of intimidation against Jewish Australians who have nothing to do with the decisions of a foreign government. Holding Australian Jews responsible for Israel’s actions is not political commentary. This is racism and its oldest and most enduring form.
Universities, by their nature, are places of competition and debate. It must be so. Free inquiry, dissent, and the right to protest are not only allowed on college campuses; These are important for the mission of the university. But freedom of expression is a completely different concept to hate speech, and what happened on many Australian campuses was not free speech. It was hate speech: banners calling for the killing of Jews, slogans calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, behavior designed to intimidate and intimidate a specific group of people. This is not a contest of ideas. This is intentional targeting of people because of who they are.
Many universities have hidden behind the concept of free speech to avoid taking action, and many universities have used academic freedom as a cover to tolerate things that are clearly abhorrent. The result was that Jewish students and staff were left fearful, unsafe and unsupported in institutions that were supposed to be safe and learning places for all. It is also worth noting that evidence suggests that Muslim students were among those who reported feeling unsafe on Australian campuses during this period. An environment where hate is normalized is an environment where no one is truly safe, and this is another reason why failure to act decisively is so damaging and wrong.
In the days after the attack in December, I visited Bondi Beach with Jewish friends. It was a place where indescribable pain was experienced and witnessed both cruelty, cowardice, and the extraordinary courage of those who ran towards the sound of gunfire. I thought of every Australian Jew who has spent the last two years in fear and deserves better than the country and the institutions that will keep them safe.
I spoke out about antisemitism because I know what silence costs. I knew this in my childhood, I saw that my father’s hatred was unabated, and I refused to carry this silence into my professional life. I became a patron of the Dor Foundation, which means generation in Hebrew, because I believe generational change is both possible and necessary. We can build a future in which anti-Semitism will not only decline, but will be actively and permanently eliminated through education, institutional courage and true collective leadership.
Jennifer Westacott is chancellor of Western Sydney University, patron of the Dor Foundation and former president of the Business Council of Australia.
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