By The Australian Human Rights Commission

A study is being undertaken into the prevalence, nature and impact of racism in Australian universities for both staff and students, at the individual and systemic level. This interim report outlines how this will be done and provides initial insights reflecting stakeholder feedback, emerging themes and early issues for consideration. It highlights a range of concerns from both students and staff in relation to their experience of racism on university campuses.

Racism in universities is a long-standing problem, with research showing it is a persistent and systemic issue for students and staff from First Nations and other negatively racialised backgrounds. The severity of recent incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia combined with other experiences of racism across different groups, creates an urgent need to act decisively.

The findings reveal trends in racism and structural discrimination with significant impacts on wellbeing, participation and performance. At the conclusion of the study, the Commission will deliver comprehensive research findings and recommendations on how to effectively address and reduce racism, in all its forms, at universities.

Key findings

First Nations students and staff – Indigenous participants report enduring structural and interpersonal racism.

Jewish students and staff – Jewish students and staff cited a rise in antisemitism including extremist propaganda, intimidation and exclusion.

Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students and staff – participants described hostility, threats and discriminatory practices, including restrictions on cultural expression and prayer spaces.

African and Asian students and staff – African students and staff frequently encountered severe racism, often feeling the need to moderate their natural ways of expressing themselves. Asian participants reported being stereotyped as high achieving but limited to specific academic disciplines.

International students – reports of exclusion, social isolation and fears of visa repercussions were common. Many felt reduced, viewed as ‘cash cows’ for universities.

Sydney: Australian Human Rights Commission, 2024. 137p

Edited by Matthias J. Becker, Hagen Troschke, Matthew Bolton, and Alexis Chapelan

This open access book is the first comprehensive guide to identifying antisemitism online today, in both its explicit and implicit (or coded) forms. Developed through years of on-the-ground analysis of over 100,000 authentic comments posted by social media users in the UK, France, Germany and beyond, the book introduces and explains the central historical, conceptual and linguistic-semiotic elements of 46 antisemitic concepts, stereotypes and speech acts. The guide was assembled by researchers working on the Decoding Antisemitism project at the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at Technische Universität Berlin, building on existing basic definitions of antisemitism, and drawing on expertise in various fields. Using authentic examples taken from social media over the past four years, it sets out a pioneering step-by-step approach to identifying and categorising antisemitic content, providing guidance on how to recognise a statement as antisemitic or not. This book will be an invaluable tool through which researchers, students, practitioners and social media moderators can learn to recognise contemporary antisemitism online – and the structural aspects of hate speech more generally – in all its breadth and diversity.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2024. 541p.

Edited by Matthias J. Becker, Laura Ascone, Karolina Placzynta and Chloé Vincent

The normalisation of hate speech, including antisemitic rhetoric, poses a significant threat to social cohesion and democracy. While global efforts have been made to counter contemporary antisemitism, there is an urgent need to understand its online manifestations. Hate speech spreads easily across the internet, facilitated by anonymity and reinforced by algorithms that favour engaging--even if offensive--content. It often takes coded forms, making detection challenging. Antisemitism in Online Communication addresses these issues by analysing explicit and implicit antisemitic statements in mainstream online discourse. Drawing from disciplines such as corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, semiotics, history, and philosophy, this edited collection examines over 100,000 user comments from three language communities. Contributors explore various facets of online antisemitism, including its intersectionality with misogyny and its dissemination through memes and social networks. Through case studies, they examine the reproduction, support, and rejection of antisemitic tropes, alongside quantitative assessments of comment structures in online discussions. Additionally, the volume delves into the capabilities of content moderation tools and deep-learning models for automated hate speech detection. This multidisciplinary approach provides a comprehensive understanding of contemporary antisemitism in digital spaces, recognising the importance of addressing its insidious spread from multiple angles.

Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers. 2024.262p.

By Blyth Crawford

This report examines the often under‑studied connections between antisemitism and anti‑gender sentiment within the neofascist militant accelerationist (NMA) movement. It considers the central importance of family within the NMA mission to maintain white racial ‘purity’, before outlining dominant antisemitic conspiracy theories prevalent between accelerationist movements such as the ‘Great Replacement’. Closely related is the ‘Cultural Marxism’ conspiracy theory which is a key point of focus of this paper. This narrative frames Jewish people as having disproportionate influence within cultural institutions, such as the media, with Jews often imagined as using this power to influence society subtly in a variety of ways that might lead to the white race being ‘replaced’. In particular, this report focuses on how the NMA movement imagines Jewish people as influencing sexual politics in ways that are regarded as being ‘anti‑family’ and therefore constitute a threat to the white race.

Key Findings

• The rigid conceptions of what constitutes a ‘real’ family typical among NMA movements has direct implications for sex and gender norms. Any sexuality or aspect of sexual politics that falls outside these strict constructions is regarded as a threat to the white race and is attributed to hostile Jewish influence.

• NMA groups’ anti‑gender narratives therefore constitute a multi‑pronged threat, combining hatred towards feminists and the LGBTQ+ community with antisemitism.

London: ICSR King’s College London 2022. 40p.