USYD case filing imminent
Original and full article published on australianjewishnews.com
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FORMER JUDGE JOINS ACTION
- The first step is a complaint alleging discrimination through the Australian Human Rights Commission.
The first step is a complaint alleging discrimination through the Australian Human Rights Commission. The legal team behind the case has conducted over 60 interviews “to finesse the groups’ claims and the respondents to the action”, Levitt Robinson human rights advocate Dana Levitt told The AJN.
“The class action to be brought by Levitt Robinson Solicitors, instructing Adam Butt of Counsel, and assisted by the Hon Ron Merkel SC … seeks to hold those clearly responsible for fomenting and tolerating antisemitism, to the detriment of Jewish students, staff, and academics alike, fully accountable under the law,” she said.
“By invoking Australia’s well-developed anti-discrimination legislation, and the common law, the class action promises to achieve what back-channel diplomacy between community and student groups has been unable to achieve so far.”
Levitt said the class action is both necessary and timely, and “all those involved, not least the legal team, know that the stakes are high”.
“The law is on our side, and the time has come for us to bring a case that differentiates between free speech and hate speech, and in so doing bolsters the human rights of Jewish students and staff at the University of Sydney and other educational institutions throughout Australia,” she said.
“We wouldn’t be doing this if it didn’t have a strong prospect of success.”
Associate Professor Andy Smidt, who left the university in February and while not a claimant has consulted with Levitt Robinson, told The AJN the campus “has become an incredibly stressful, toxic environment”.
She recalled one staff member who had to be escorted to her car because “she did not feel safe”.
“The atmosphere is just horrific,” she said.
“People are leaving. People are choosing to work from home. People are experiencing very real mental health crises.”
Smidt said vice-chancellor Mark Scott and his team have “lacked leadership in taking a firm stand”.
“The university has a responsibility to create a safe working and learning environment. I don’t believe they’ve done that,” she said.
“The legal case is one absolute way of making sure people do take that responsibility seriously. Hopefully it would be a lesson to other universities as well, that this is not acceptable.”
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