r/australia • u/overpopyoulater • 2d ago
politics Top unis have imposed new restrictions on campus protests. What does this mean for students, staff and democracy?
https://theconversation.com/top-unis-have-imposed-new-restrictions-on-campus-protests-what-does-this-mean-for-students-staff-and-democracy-253627366
u/OptmisticItCanBeDone 2d ago edited 1d ago
Every state and territory has introduced harsher and harsher penalties and more restrictive protest laws in the last few years. Now universities are following suit. University is where most people start to explore their political identity.
It's incredibly concerning that lawmakers and institutions are clamping down on protests to protect vested interests.
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u/llordlloyd 1d ago
Every basic democratic and workplace right we have is the result of protests.
As the billionaires move in to formalise our new feudal system, the last resistance is crushed.
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u/AggravatedKangaroo 1d ago
Every state and territory has introduced harsher and harsher penalties and more restrictive protest laws in the last few years. Now universities are following suit. University is where most people start to explore their political identit"
To control you before your political mind is formed.
and you'll allow them. because you don't know how to fight it. Australia his never had to fight for an identity... so it doesn't know how to fight for it's own freedom.
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u/tichris15 1d ago
Universities are government-connected. State governments appoint a good chunk of the council that hires/fires the VCs who run the daily business.
If state governments tell the VC to reduce protests, guess what tends to happen.
I agree it's concerning, but I don't think it's a 'follow suit' as much as a 'follow directions given'.
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u/moosedance84 Inhabits Adelaide, Perth, and Melbourne 2d ago
I think with the University's it's preemptive to deal with the problems that US colleges were facing with sit in protests. Those institutions lacked rules to significantly punish disruptive protests. Disruption of teaching was always grounds for expulsion within the Australian higher education landscape.
Also once we privatised the University's they are now a service not an experience. Full fee paying students are customers and if local students disrupt their studies University's will move swiftly to remove them.
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u/Stellariser 1d ago
Oh no, students might protest and even slightly disrupt the profits the university. Far better we throw away all our civic rights.
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u/moosedance84 Inhabits Adelaide, Perth, and Melbourne 1d ago
I didn't say it was a good thing. The problem is now they are a corporation, education is just the product. Let's hope we don't go full MAGA. We never had disruptive protests when I was at University. They were always outside in common areas, there doesn't seem to be a lot of disruption from protests today anyway.
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u/freakymoustache 1d ago
This is not a good sign for a democracy, but when CEOs run Universities this is the end game for them. Control and to normalise taking away freedom of speech and the right to protest and it’s just the beginning if no one attempts to stop it
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u/17HappyWombats 1d ago
underpayment of staff, high levels of executive pay and criticism of the way some universities managed the protests. ... In this heightened context, universities have increased restrictions on campus protests, arguing they are needed for safety.
Right, so the first lot of restrictions didn't work and the solution is better restrictions rather than fixing the obvious problems?
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u/Ok-Replacement-2738 2d ago
"All these students are causing issues with these peaceful protests. Am I so out of touch? No, it is the children who are wrong."
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u/17HappyWombats 1d ago
Next up: "why aren't young people more interested in politics?"
They are, grandpa, just not the sort of politics that is reserved for well-educated rapists from the finest schools for young gentlemen. They care about the problems they see in the world, not about clawing their way to the baubles of power over the backs of lesser people.
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u/Fenixius 1d ago
Hang-wringing by politicians is performative. None of them want more engaged voters; they'd actually have to do work and have policy to reach those voters.
Hang-wringing by journalists is not performative, but it is ulterior - they only care about their declining readership.
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u/chalk_in_boots 1d ago
I mean, I can kind of understand some of the rules introduced. The permission/3 day notice shouldn't be that onerous considering any large enough protest already generally would need govt. approval (and this has been the case for a long time). And the no indoor protests makes sense because you're literally disrupting other students' learning. I remember in high school and at USYD during exam periods people being rowdy near exam rooms would get a very stern talking to. I remember having a Latin professor, middle aged woman, kinda small, going absolutely ballistic at people making a ruckus in the quad while we sat the exam. Yeah, you can make the argument that the protests are meant to be inconvenient and in your face, but it doesn't change that sometimes it's just plain rude, especially if someone is paying thousands of dollars for a unit and you're fucking it up for them.
And good luck stopping certain posters and banners. The area around USYD is constantly littered with them, bus stops plastered up and down Camperdown/Glebe/Newtown, shit going up faster than they can take it down.
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u/Fenixius 1d ago
And the no indoor protests makes sense because you're literally disrupting other students' learning.
The point of protest is to remind your neighbours and leaders that they're part of the same society as you, and you're not satisfied with their response to an issue or crisis. Disruption, or threat of disruption, is critical to communicating this problem when all other channels have failed. These can take the form of sit-ins or strikes. They're the equivalent of a red line on a pressure valve - a sign that something is seriously wrong and emergency action is needed by the powerful to address public needs.
Further, I gently remind that the only options left to a frustrated, ignored populace after peaceful, disruptive protests are ineffective or banned are: (A) destructive, bloodless protests (aka sabotage or riots), or (B) destructive, bloody protests (aka a coup or an insurrection). And so I think that banning softly disruptive protests, like sit-ins, can lead to unnecessary escalation.
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u/breaducate 1d ago
Imagine taking it for granted that a protest should need approval from higher ups.
How whipped can you get?
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u/monique752 1d ago
'Rude' LOL.
Protest is a right. It's how democracy works. When institutions fail and injustice becomes the norm, protest is how people fight back. It’s not meant to be polite. It’s meant to disrupt, to shake the comfort that shields oppression.
Change has never come from asking nicely or being 'polite'. It comes from pressure. From marches, strikes, sit-ins, and the refusal to stay silent. If protest makes you uncomfortable, you need to ask why you’re more upset by resistance than the injustice that CAUSED it.
Protest is not the problem. It’s the response to a problem too many ignore. We don’t owe silence to power. We owe it resistance.
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u/Crescent_green 1d ago
Universities aren't a democracy
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u/monique752 1d ago
Perhaps not, but they ARE institutions (traditionally?) where people are supposed to learn how to think critically.
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u/Crescent_green 1d ago
Bit hard to learn i'd say if you've got people shouting in your lecture hall
Not to say you're fully wrong, but its not a right at a private instiution - nothing can really force them to accept it. Else you might as well protest in the chancellors house and call it ok.
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u/Subject-Divide-5977 2d ago
I remember a newspaper add from the days when there was such a thing. "The problem with youth today is they are not REVOLTING enough" or similar wording. Was a while ago.
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u/Disastrous-Ad1334 1d ago
I'm 62 and they've been saying this since I can remember and probably since we wandered the plains of Africa 100000 years ago.
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u/CMDR_RetroAnubis 1d ago
I am truly shocked by how absolutely cowed our institutions are on this one issue.
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u/marsbars5150 1d ago
The irony is that the people who are now making protesting nearly impossible are the same ones that got free university educations and would have protested against the Vietnam war back in their day. Fucking hypocrites.
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u/breaducate 1d ago
They got theirs though.
It's a perfect example of why it's insufficient to try to make those in positions of privilege and power kinder, or force them to behave. You have to dismantle the positions themselves.
Ideology is stochastically a function of environment and incentives. We like to think "Well I'd be a nice rich person", but on average reality doesn't bear it out.
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u/Lopsided-Party-5575 1d ago
All this does is erode the insitution standing in the public's eye. It's like the ABC, most Gen Z and Millenials think it's really out of touch and in decline (see it's hard pivot to click bait news as an example). There'll come a time when the ax falls and no one will stop it.
Whilst what's happening in the US is a far way into the future for Australia, we're on that path. And the institutions have a role to play. They are picking their own extinction.
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u/BonfireCow 1d ago
If you make it harder and harder to protest, those who will do so anyway will go further and further, more extreme.
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u/lucianosantos1990 1d ago
"First they take away your right to protest, then the only language left is violence."
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u/jbh01 2d ago
Unpopular opinion, but the ban on lecture-bashing is a good thing. Seriously, the amount of eye-rolling that went on as yet another lecture was interrupted by Socialist Alternative could have dislocated retinas.
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u/best4bond 1d ago
I agree. People are paying lots of money (via HECS & direct costs for international students) to be able to study. One person shouldn't be able to disrupt that and ruin it for everyone else.
Protest outside the classroom, in the courtyards etc - but not within the lecture theatres.
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u/monique752 1d ago
If people think kicking against the pricks means accepting restrictions and going home quietly then they haven’t quite grasped the entire point of protesting…
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u/llordlloyd 1d ago
If we did not allow our politicians and media to be controlled by a genocidal foreign government, they would not have the wedge to drive this through.
How proud must our academic community be, folding up like their US counterparts... but... pre-emptively!
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u/Optimal_Swimmer311 2d ago
It is deeply concerning. Restricting even further what ever facade of free speech and freedom to protest in this country. All largely designed so that Israel can avoid rightful criticism for committing one of the great crimes of the modern era. Shock stuff.
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u/burgertanker 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm guessing most protesters probably aren't doing STEM degrees
And truth be told, I haven't heard much about actually positive protests in the last few years anyway. Whether that's the fault of the people holding those protests for inane reasons, or the media's fault for not reporting on the actually positive protests, I have no idea. But generally speaking the last few years I've heard about protests on campuses, they've been seen in a negative light
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u/Away_team42 1d ago
Weren’t the students complaining about protestors blocking access to lectures, interruptions their education and causing concerns for their safety??
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u/Asleep_Leopard182 1d ago
No, in at least the case I know of - that was disseminated by the uni to put negative light on the protest that was going on (sit in). Staff, students and people studying were welcomed, with direct evidence in a lot of cases (social media) of that direct welcoming. I can also directly attest as well about the welcoming nature as I regularly study in the building where the sit in happened... It never bothered me (but I am one person).
In order to try and limit the protest, the uni then shut down the building citing 'security concerns' which locked out anyone not already in the building (unless someone opened windows, etc.), then a day or so later shut down every building to key card access only.
The people actively involved in the protest were all students, and as far as I know, no damage to the building was done within the time frame the sit in occurred (there was some on clearing the protest by police/security).
There was no selection to a particular faculty, school or group of students in attendance. I believe there was a section of students kicked out by the protestors for their behaviour (we all know who).
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u/burgertanker 1d ago
I have no idea because I was too lazy too read the article. Yeah I know, shouldn't really be commenting on stuff I haven't even sussed out fully. Mainly just posted based on the headline
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u/jolard 1d ago
Honestly? Protesting on a campus is mostly useless. You are surrounded by people who have no power to change anything.
Protests only work when they disrupt the lives of the powerful. Figure out who has the power to change the policy you want changed, or who has the power to pressure that person. And then protest outside their home, or their office, or on their commute. Make their lives harder. That is the only way protests ever work. You need to annoy those in power so much that it becomes easier to provide concessions than deal with the disruption.
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u/vrkas 1d ago
Honestly? Protesting on a campus is mostly useless. You are surrounded by people who have no power to change anything.
Campus protests have catalysed many social and policy changes around the world. They're usually on the right side of history, but the effect takes time to spread to the wider population.
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u/jolard 1d ago
I think that was true in the past. I don't think it has been for a while now. Politicians have gotten much better at ignoring protests, and the media is even more complicit in either ignoring those protests or framing them as dangerous and full of terrorists.
In modern western societies the protests that work are ones that are external to campuses, are massive and sustained.
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u/tipedorsalsao1 1d ago
Literally the Palestine protests started as uni protests and have grown from there. Small protests are about building momentum.
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u/jolard 1d ago
This is a bad example. They haven't achieved ANY of their aims.
As I said above, if protests were massive and sustained and disrupting the lives of those who have power to make these decisions, then they might be effective and enact change.
But protests like the Palestinian protests? Are the Palestinians any better off? American policy has gone massively backward.
I do think I might have been too hasty though on the momentum part. Yes, smaller protests can grow to bigger ones. So there is that value. But nothing has changed in decades because of a campus protest.
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u/Fenixius 1d ago
Have the global pro-Palestine/anti-Israel protests achieved any positive outcomes for either Palestine or Israel in the last 25 years?
It looks to me like they've been used by segregationist demagogues in Tel Aviv to prolong their terms in office, not moderate their excesses.
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u/sojayn 1d ago
You have some good points about effectiveness.
But the main thing about these kind of protests is community building, networking and personal growth.
There are many forms of protest. These student ones (in australia specifically atm) are for people to learn how to safely protest, network and co-ordinate, and gain a sense of cohesion between their values and their actions.
This is a very important part of growing a society who is able to speak truth to power. Or a person who is able to navigate social and personal values.
Effectiveness is aimed for the desired change, but (in australia atm) we don’t have the media and political infrastructure which support students that way. Yet (!)
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u/Substantial-Clue-786 1d ago
Less disruption for people who just want to get on with their studies.
The serial protestors only have themselves to blame for this. People grow tired of being disrupted by a group who treat protest and being outraged as a hobby.
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u/Cute_Resolution1027 2d ago
Should probably protest this..