Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and spokesperson for Anti-Racism and Higher Education, has reacted to the interim report on racism in universities.
Quotes attributable to Senator Mehreen Faruqi:
"The findings that racism is pervasive in universities doesn't come as a surprise but it still makes for devastating reading. Like the rest of society, racism is rife in universities.
"Universities should be places that lead the way and set an example for how to be anti-racist but instead staff and students experience the trauma and distress of systemic racism in their institutions.
"A genuine interrogation of institutional racism at each and every university is essential so they confront the legacies of imperialism, racism and white privilege in academia.
"Evidence that international students are facing exclusion, a lack of support and feeling unwelcome is particularly disturbing. It should be a wake up call for Labor and the Liberals to stop their racist dog whistling and scapegoating for political advantage that is harming communities.
"Universities must foster a culture of being actively anti-racist, accountable for racist behaviour and norms, and support for First Nations people and culturally and racially marginalised people. Only then can we build an anti-racist campus.
"This report is another piece of evidence in a list that grows longer and longer about how entrenched racism is in this country across all sectors. The time to hide behind nice words like 'social cohesion' and 'harmony' is over. We need to fully confront racism and call it for what it is.
"Today must be the day the government commits to fully funding and implementing the National Anti-Racism Framework."
