An independent review by The Honourable John Middleton AM KC into the National Symposium on Unifying Anti-Racist Research has found that no racist or antisemitic content was presented at the Symposium, despite smear campaigns by pro-Israel groups and the Australian Newspaper.
The Review also found no breaches of the Code of Conduct and no racist conduct by any of the Symposium’s presenters or organisers.
The Review found:
11. Ms Schwartz intended to critique what she perceives as the political weaponisation of Jewish identity and antisemitism by certain political leaders. She was not critical of Jewish people themselves.
12.13 While some controversy emerged following the media reporting of Ms Schwartz’s and Ms Munro’s Debate slides, it is important to consider the full context of the event and the presentations of both Ms Schwartz and Ms Munro (as set out above). The slides, when considered with the accompanying spoken words, were not antisemitic in nature nor were they found to be offensive to those actually present at the Debate. The intent of the presentations remained aligned with the University’s standards and the purpose of the Debate.12.14 In the context of the Debate, expectations of its content were evident from its promotion. Just focusing on the audience in attendance, whilst undoubtedly the content was not respectful to the targets of the criticism, and would be unwelcome to them, no breach of the Code of Conduct was apparent. The real issues arose once the content of various slides was disclosed (out of context) to the media.
A full version of the review is available here.
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