Professor Mark Scott AO, Vice-Chancellor
University of Sydney
Professor Lisa Adkins, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Dear Professor Scott and Professor Adkins,
The Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) is writing to express concerns regarding a large and growing gap at the University of Sydney between its goal to contribute to a better world and the direction the university is taking.
An absolutely fundamental part of contributing to a better world is striving for a more peaceful world, particularly now as global tensions mount. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that education shall “…promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace”.
Far from promoting peace, the University appears to be retreating from this goal, while increasing the promotion of militarism.
MAPW has several specific concerns, including the following.
1. Disengagement from the Sydney Peace Foundation
The Sydney Peace Foundation was based at the University of Sydney from its inception in 1998. Its advocacy for peace, particularly through the prestigious Sydney Peace Prize, was recognised globally.
However the University has now disengaged from the Foundation. This announcement was made at a time that Australia should be promoting peace and the importance of upholding international law, and the University should be demonstrating its core principles central to ‘building trust’ and ‘leadership for good’. While we understand the University will continue to support the Sydney Peace Foundation as an independent entity, the disengagement is a very poorly advised and ill-timed decision.
2. Demise of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies
For nearly three decades, the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies was a vibrant centre of community and political engagement of national and international significance, linking academic research and teaching with peace advocacy and conflict resolution practice.
In May 2016, the University closed the Centre, and five years later its postgraduate program in Peace and Conflict Studies also. The number of academic staff specialising in Peace and Conflict Studies has been halved from 3 full-time equivalents to just 1.5.
These changes represent an immeasurable loss of opportunity to contribute to peace with justice in today’s increasingly violent world
3. Rampant militarism at the US Studies Centre
While peace studies fails to receive the recognition it needs, the University’s US Studies Centre (USSC) pursues its explicit vision of “strengthening Australia’s relationship with the United States”, a relationship which very many commentators currently regard as antithetical to the cause of peace. The USSC’s active promotion of a US-Australian military buildup against China is also antithetical to the University’s heavy reliance on students from mainland China.
Publications from the USSC include a rapid stream of reports urging the strengthening of the highly controversial AUKUS agreement and other military collaborations. Far from promoting intellectual rigor, the USSC does not examine on its merits the very large and growing opposition to AUKUS in Australia, but simply argues that universities must help overcome this opposition.
4. Other collaborations and links, including with entities complicit in Israel’s destruction of education in Gaza
Beyond the USSC, the University has a large array of links with the defence sector.
Of particular current concern are the collaborations with companies that supply Israel militarily as it conducts what is widely regarded as genocide in Gaza. Safran is just one such company.
In June, the UN-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory reported that the Israeli military’s destruction of educational and cultural infrastructure in Gaza amounts to war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination. Through its collaborations, Sydney University is helping legitimise this destruction of education.
Further, the UN Human Rights Council stated over a year ago that any state transfer of weapons to Israel may constitute complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide. While universities do not transfer weapons or weapons parts, collaboration with the companies that do so carries the same grave moral and reputational risks.
In addition to the benefits Israel receives from collaborations between Australian universities and weapons companies, Israel’s longstanding suppression of Palestinian academic freedom is reported to have increased since October 2023, with an unprecedented number of suspensions, expulsions, and disciplinary actions against Palestinian students by Israeli institutions.
5. Suppression of dissent
The problem of the encroachment of military interests on university programs is compounded by the university’s suppression of dissent among students. MAPW shares the concerns of many Sydney University students and staff, Amnesty International Australia and others that the University is undermining the right to protest, including through its revised Campus Access Policy.
The fundamental human right of peaceful assembly and association is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Further, the concerns of the students who have protested against Israel’s actions are entirely legitimate and reflect a desire for justice and fairness, a desire which should be acknowledged, not repressed.
The legal and moral case for all states, all institutions, and all individuals to act in defence of universal rights and to uphold their obligations in relation to Palestine, could not be clearer. Sydney University leadership has willfully ignored these imperatives, focussing instead on limiting and punishing campus activism.
This suppression of democratic rights on campus is even more serious when taken in the broader context of escalating restrictions on dissent across New South Wales. As civic space for lawful protest shrinks, universities must remain places where ideas can be debated, challenged, and tested—including through protest.
In the light of all of the above, MAPW urges you to:
- Set out the measures that are in place for the University to comply with the UDHR’s requirements that:
– education shall “further…the maintenance of peace”; and
– everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. - Cease collaboration with companies that supply products or services to Israel, until that nation complies fully with international humanitarian law.
Thank you for your attention to these matters, and we await your response.
Sincerely
Dr Sue Wareham OAM
President, Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia)