We appreciate the call by Deakin University Deputy Vice-Chancellor Kerrie Parker, who has requested the encampment at Deakin Burwood be dismantled. All students, including Jewish students, have the right to access their university safely and without being harassed. We urge other universities to follow Deakin’s lead and tell encampment organisers it is time to pack up.

Monash University has also continued to show leadership. The JCCV welcomes Monash Security and Victoria Police’s efforts to check ID cards and remove any non-students involved in the encampment at Clayton. The JCCV has received reports of radical extremists in the encampments, individuals who have no connection to the university and are inciting hate. These troublemakers have no place at our universities.

We urge universities to continue to enforce their own codes of conducts. Media has reported that Monash University has warned students that using phrases like “intifada” or “from the river to the sea” may lead to disciplinary action. However, the JCCV has received many reports of students continuing to use these violent slogans. Codes of conduct have value only when they are enforced.

The University of Melbourne has been slower to act. University council member and Jewish community leader Mark Leibler AC said that Chancellor Jane Hansen has refused to publicly recognise that there is an antisemitism crisis on her campus.

Mark wrote in The Australian: “From my experience, senior leaders at Melbourne University, who have been dealing with Jewish students at the coalface, have been both sensitive and empathetic, which makes chancellor Jane Hansen’s refusal to publicly recognise that there is an antisemitism crisis taking place on our campus all the more surprising and disheartening.”