The Campus Access Policy (CAP), introduced on June 27th, is bad news for free speech. Mark Scott’s email announcing the new policy as “ensuring a safe and welcoming campus” is doublespeak that hides his real agenda: revoking the right of students and staff to organise freely.
The attacks are broad. They range from restrictions on protests to preventing students from even setting up a stall or putting up a poster. They also impart new powers to security, including the power to detain students for the purpose of delivering them to the NSW police.
These new changes impact all students and staff, and will stifle the vibrant life of many clubs and societies. Up until now, students have had the right to put up posters whenever and wherever they like. Clubs and societies use this frequently to advertise their revues, club meet-ups, picnics or barbecues. Students have also had the freedom to use information stalls that advertise their clubs, engage other students in conversation, or even host performances.
Now, all of these actions must be approved by the University with 72-hours notice. This is an incursion on students’ rights to freely organise on their own campus. It is just as invasive as if the government forced people to give notice for organising public forums or get togethers. Even if the university gives approval, the fact that students now have to jump through these hoops to organise is an attack on our rights.
The Campus Access Policy also gives the University the right to refuse approval. If they don’t approve of the messages students wish to display, they now have policy on their side to obstruct and discipline dissenting students. The new CAP gives the University all the power to decide what is allowed and what isn’t. The policy’s vagueness means that they may suppress any sentiment they don’t agree with. Over time, this could mean a decline in student life and a University resembling a corporate, lifeless degree factory.
The CAP also puts in place restrictions on protests, such as mandates that students give notice and ask for permission to use megaphones. It also gives security new powers and puts a blanket ban on protests that are indoors.
The power the CAP gives the University is especially concerning because it is an explicit attack on students’ ability to organise against the institution. The past several years have seen a wide range of students organise against course cuts, against degree fee increases, and in solidarity with striking staff. For example, when the university attempted to amalgamate and cut the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in 2021, it was important that activists could call snap rallies. When staff told us new information on what the cuts would look like or when we saw university executive figures who were responsible for the cuts walk around on campus, having the freedom to immediately protest them kept up the pressure.
Occupying buildings like F23 also showed the University that these cuts were not supported and that people were angry. Under these new laws, the University could have prevented this campaign from going ahead at all, and passed these attacks unopposed. Any student attempting to continue the campaign would have risked academic disciplinary measures.
The University loves to talk about its history of protest, of the Freedom Rides, how a protest campaign set up the Political Economy Department or how students gathered against the Vietnam War. All of these historic campaigns relied on students being able to freely agitate and organise.
These restrictions are also dangerous because they apply to staff. To fight for better pay and conditions and against attacks by the University, staff organise protests, speak outs, information stalls for their union and strikes. These actions are critical in winning conditions for staff that are intrinsically connected to the quality of our education. Now, staff will also be restricted by these policies. Legal industrial action is still allowed, but broader activism to improve staff conditions can be curtailed. The University is not a neutral body: it has an agenda and in these cases wants to win against staff. With the CAP, they will use their new powers to prevent staff from organising and speaking out.
Mark Scott is not implementing this new policy out of nowhere. It is in direct retaliation to the months-long Gaza Solidarity Encampment. The encampment put focus on the university’s ties with weapons companies, Israel and genocide. It saw hundreds of students and staff come together for a range of direct action and protests. It saw supporters across Sydney come and visit to show their support. The University was exposed for profiting off war. These new rules are about preventing anything like the Solidarity Campaign from happening again. Yet students and staff must have the freedom and the right to protest, to organise and to speak out. That is what free speech means.
If the CAP is not reversed, it could change student life permanently. It will increase the amount of bureaucratic hoops through which student and staff groups will have to jump to organise anything. It will give the University power to stop events being organised that they disagree with. Students could face academic or legal penalties for non-compliance. It will impact all of us. That’s why we need to fight to overturn this draconian policy.
Join the campaign to defeat CAP!
Sign the open letter: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeaA8aP4vxTapEM8J9twSdXttd8iFg2HZjOYvVCyJzbypaZbg/viewform
In a club or society? Join our unauthorised stalls day!
A University spokesperson told Honi in a statement that the current version of the policy “strikes an appropriate balance” between free speech and campus safety.
“We are not banning protests, or even requiring approval – we’re simply asking for 72 hours notice so we can plan accordingly. We ask permission for some things, such as megaphones, to help be sure they will not be used in ways that disrupt our core activities, intimidate people or threaten their health.
“There is no need to ask permission to put posters up in designated areas, but if someone wants to put up signage in other places we need to be able to ensure that it is safe and will not cause damage”