The Race Discrimination Commissioner today released the final report of the Racism@Uni study, Respect at Uni: Study into Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Racism and the Experience of First Nations people. The report is a comprehensive examination of the structural and systemic racism experienced by staff and students at our universities, providing 47 recommendations for government and universities to combat racism.
Over 75,000 university staff and students from 42 universities responded to the Racism@Uni survey, revealing that 69.9% of respondents have experienced indirect racism at university, such as hearing or seeing racist behaviour not aimed at them personally, but directed towards the racial, ethnic, cultural or religious group with which they identify. The report also found that 14.9% of respondents have experienced direct interpersonal racism at university. One in five academic staff respondents report experiencing direct interpersonal racism at university. International students reported the highest rate of indirect racism with 3 in 4 international student respondents reporting experiencing indirect racism at university.
The report makes wide-ranging recommendations to tackle systemic racism by embedding ant-racism into governance, curriculum, training, leadership, staffing and student support.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and Anti-racism spokesperson:
“This report may come as a shock to those who don’t experience racism, but for the rest of us it is business as usual. It lays bare the terrifying truth: racism is not an exception in our universities, it is the rule, and it is harming students and staff across racial and religious groups.
“When racially marginalised students cannot walk into a lecture theatre without fear of abuse, exclusion or discrimination, it is not just a campus problem. It is a systemic problem. The promise of education is being poisoned by racism.
“The Prime Minister must urgently adopt the report’s systemic whole-of-racism reforms, and scrap the sham one-sided anti-semitism report cards, which have been roundly criticised.
“Cherry picking one type of racism over others does nothing to dismantle structural racism embedded in policy and practice. It only entrenches the systems of discrimination we should be dismantling.
“The Albanese Government has been gaslighting and dismissing anti-Palestinian racism for the last two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but with Palestinian respondents experiencing the highest levels of racism, the Government can no longer refuse to accept this reality.
“Students and staff are not thriving. They are drowning under relentless pressure and hostility. Universities should be safe places of learning and teaching, not sites of humiliation and harm.
“It is a real shame that the Albanese Labor government has been sitting on the National Anti-Racism Framework for over a year while racism is allowed to grow.
“Now is the time to course-correct to build not just anti-racist universities but also an anti-racist country by funding and implementing the comprehensive recommendations made by the AHRC.”