QUT race debate not antisemitic, despite damaging fallout: review

Sydney Morning Herald

5 days ago

A review into a satirical race debate at the Queensland University of Technology that sparked media outrage has cast a shadow over the future of one of the university's specialist research institutes.
The review was commissioned in February to look into the anti-racism event organised by the Carumba Institute, which focuses on First Nations research and education at QUT's two Brisbane campuses.
Under its six recommendations, released on Wednesday, the university's governing council was urged to 'consider and define the role and function and the leadership' of the institute, and more closely supervise its public events.
The institute's January symposium on anti-racist research made headlines after one audience member leaked recordings and presentation slides from the satirical 'Greatest Race Debate'.
While on stage, writer and artist Lorna Munro, a Wiradjuri and Gamilaroi woman, showed slides calling on the audience to 'throat punch a racist'.
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Jewish Council of Australia chair Sarah Schwartz presented a checklist of characteristics that she said were being used to weaponise Jewish identity by political leaders, in a slide headlined 'Dutton's Jew'.
The review found these slides and the speakers' remarks were not antisemitic or offensive 'to those actually present', and should be considered within the full context of the event.
It found Munro's presentation, 'while provocative in tone, was clearly satirical in nature', while Schwartz's was intended as a criticism of certain political leaders, and not Jewish people themselves.