By J. Rob Bray, Matthew Gray, Deirdre Howard-Wagner Bernard Baffour, Francis Markham, Kate Doery, Elfie Shiosaki, Perri Chapman, Lorana Bartels, Nicholas Biddle

A presentation of the Racism@Uni survey, conducted in August and September 2025, as part of a broader study into racism at Australian universities being undertaken by the Australian Human Rights Commission. The survey asked whether people had experienced racism in the past two years, and if so where. It asked about student and staff experiences of, and perceptions about, their university, their knowledge of policies to address racism, and whether they took precautionary actions to guard against racism. 42 out of the 43 Australian universities participated in the survey. From the 1.65 million invitations sent to Australian university staff and students 76,131 responses were obtained. There are key areas of the study environment at universities which need to be addressed, including the management of small group learning environments, and placements and internships. While some university policies are seen as effective, others, such as the management of complaints, were not, and some policies were seen as being performative, rather than substantive. This is Part A of a two-part report. Part B is Thematic analysis of qualitative responses to question F12.

Key findings

The high levels of interpersonal racism reported at universities reflect wider racism across the Australian community, rather than simply being specific to universities. Some dimensions of reported racism reflect wider conflicts, including in this survey, conflict in the Middle East. A recurrent element of the experience of racism for many staff and students were constraints on being able to speak freely. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students reported high levels of racism and expressed mixed views about university policies and practices. Racism at university impacts negatively on students’ study, staff careers, and on staff and student mental health. It is also deleterious to people’s participation at university and their sense of belonging.

By Max Schanzenbach and Kimberly Yuracko

The war between Hamas and Israel has caused havoc in higher education. Amid student unrest, alumni pressure, congressional hearings, civil rights investigations, and student lawsuits, universities stand at a crossroads. The current situation, in which most private universities unevenly regulate student speech under ambiguous student codes, is not sustainable politically or legally. A tsunami of litigation and regulatory actions has already begun. One increasingly favored response is for private universities to more vigorously enforce existing codes or expand their scope. An alternative is for private universities to deregulate student expression and commit by contract to the First Amendment. This paper argues for the latter approach largely on pragmatic grounds. In essence, our argument is grounded in the realities of university organizational behavior which make it difficult for universities to enforce speech codes in a manner that complies with their regulatory and contractual obligations. Ambiguous codes, informal process, and political homogeneity among decision-makers inevitably results in inconsistent regulation of speech. These problems can be mitigated by committing to the First Amendment, which would both clarify and constrain university speech regulations by incorporating a large body of caselaw, some of which bears directly on higher education. Such clarity would limit the scope of university action, provide a basis for legally required consistency, and be more readily amenable to external review by courts and federal regulators. Experience with the First Amendment in public universities suggests that such a commitment will not have deleterious consequences for campus life.