A new rule restricting protests on campus, among the first acts of the new vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Professor Emma Johnston, has shocked and distressed students and staff. They fear the restrictions will have a chilling effect on activities essential to the university’s mission including free political expression and industrial action.

Implemented on the first day of the 2025 teaching year, the rule prohibits protests held indoors, or that obstruct entry and exits of university buildings, or “unreasonably disrupt” university operations.

The decision comes after a year of pro-Palestine protests on campus in Australia and globally. The occupation of the University of Melbourne’s Arts West building for a week last May caused 601 classes to be cancelled, disrupting over 16,800 students, according to a statement from the university at the time.

The rule was met with opposition from University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) and the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) University of Melbourne Branch, which responded four days later in a joint statement demanding the vice-chancellor repeal the rule.

The NTEU Melbourne branch launched a petition on April 28 addressed to Johnston, the Academic Board, and the Academic Council of the University of Melbourne, demanding the rules be repealed. It gained 500 signatures within a week of its launch.

“My initial reaction was really of shock,” said David Gonzales, president of the NTEU University of Melbourne Branch and president of the NTEU Melbourne division.

“As I dug deeper into what they actually said, it was a bit of horror.”

UMSU president Joshua Stagg told The Citizen the student body was blindsided.

“We were given no forewarning of this rule, and neither was the NTEU,” he said. “Everyone just feels that this is an incredibly top-down decision.”

Stagg explained the difference between the university’s policy framework, which requires consultation with relevant stakeholders, and the vice-chancellor rules, which do not.

“The vice-chancellor has specifically chosen to go with these specific rules because there’s no consultation required. This is something that would be much more appropriate within a policy where all relevant stakeholders can have their say.”

Johnston declined an interview with The Citizen, and instead provided a statement defending the ban on safety and free speech grounds.

“The University respects the rights of individuals to protest, [and] protest is protected by law,” it stated.

“The safety of our students and staff must also be protected as this is integral to enabling free and open debate”.

A Labor-led parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities recommended in February that universities overhaul their complaints processes and responses to student and staff concerns over antisemitism on campus.

“‘Jewish students face an unprecedented increase in fear, intimidation, and harassment from both members of the university community and non-student external actors entering campus,” the Australasian Union of Jewish Students said in their submission to the inquiry.

University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott told the inquiry in September 2024 he had “failed” Jewish students in his handling of a pro-Palestine student encampment on campus protests.

In March, a survey released by the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism of 548 Jewish respondents from 30 Australian universities revealed an alarming rise in antisemitism experienced by Jewish students and staff on campus since the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas.

On campuses around Australia, following a statement in February by Universities Australia acknowledging racism including antisemitism, there is renewed controversy over definitions of antisemitism and the question of when criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights becomes antisemitic.

Gonzales argued the protest ban conflicts with the clash of ideas that should be central to university culture. “They’re regressive and I think they will make campus life more sterile … people will play it safe and especially for students coming onto a campus where ideas are being shared and explored, to have that reduced is a real shame.”

Stagg argued the ban ignored the challenging nature of much political debate.

“There’s this distinction between making a student feel unsafe and making a student feel uncomfortable … feeling uncomfortable [is] a concomitant part of intellectual discourse,” he said.

“If you have misogynists on campus, we should have the right to make them feel uncomfortable,” he said. But with this rule, “they can then say, ‘well, this is making me feel uncomfortable’ and so the protest can be shut down.”

The Human Rights Law Centre, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch Australia released a joint statement on April 15 expressing “serious concern” regarding  Johnston’s ban. “Blanket restrictions on peaceful protest are presumptively disproportionate and risk breaching [international human rights law] protections,” the statement said.

The high-profile human rights organisation criticised the rule’s language, saying it lacked the precision necessary for future protestors to ensure their activities complied. “Disruption”, for example, could be interpreted in different ways.

“By their nature, protests are often disruptive and what is considered ‘disruptive’ is subjective and could include a wide number of protest activities,” the joint statement read.

The rights bodies also warned the rule is “likely to have a chilling effect on student and staff’s political communication via protests and public assemblies”, as they urged the university to reconsider its protest policies.

The University of Sydney released similar protest restrictions in 2024 with its Campus Access Policy, which prohibits indoor demonstrations, and those that disrupt university operations, and requires organisers to give notice of planned demonstrations and get permission before displaying banners and promotional materials.

In March this year, the University of Western Australia banned students from putting up posters, handing out leaflets outside the student union precinct, and making announcements in lectures or other teaching and learning activities.

Stagg said the vice-chancellor’s action was disappointing for students, as Johnston was previously UMSU president during her student days in 1995, and many were optimistic about her appointment.

Her predecessor, Duncan Maskell, prematurely ended his second five-year term in March 2025 after a turbulent era that included a wage underpayment scandal and poor student experience surveys, as well as the protests over the university’s links to weapons manufacturers.

At the height of the 2024 protests, Maskell demanded all protesters leave the occupied Arts West building with threats of termination of enrollment for students and serious misconduct charges for staff who did not comply.

When Johnston came in, Stagg said, “there was a lot of hope,” and he believed “this was a chance for UniMelb to say, ‘we don’t like what’s happening over at the University of Sydney, we don’t like what’s happening over in America, we are going to find a better way forward’,” referring to the protest restrictions at other universities, including many in the United States.

Now, he said, “students are frustrated and very upset, and kind of you know, ‘new boss same as the old boss’.”

The 2024 student encampment was ended by organizers on May 24 after the university agreed to disclose its links with weapons manufacturers.

Pro-Palestine students continue to call for the university to divest from weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin and Elbit Systems and Israeli institutions.

Student activist Hannah Roseman, who has been involved in campus protests, described feeling “shocked and outraged,” by the new rule.

“I couldn’t really believe that they would do something like that … I thought it was just so disgusting.”

Although the rule states restrictions do not include protected industrial action by employees, many of whom were involved in protests, the NTEU Melbourne president Gonzales is not convinced. “My biggest concerns are really about how our industrial action and protest around how management operates will be affected.”

There are also concerns about the scope of the restrictions, which Stagg described as “so broad that we have no idea what it’s going to look like”. In particular, he highlighted concerns around the use of “unreasonable” in the rule.

“The word ‘unreasonable’ has legal value when it goes to a court, but we’re not in a court, this is university administrators who are going to be applying this rule,” said Stagg.

“My concern is this is going to be able to be used in a targeted way to whatever suits the university’s fancy.”

The right to protest is fundamental to human rights, Stagg says, and has a distinguished history on campus.

“If you look at our student union’s history, we were very active in protesting,” Stagg said, listing examples such as the Vietnam War and the racist White Australia policy. “With this new rule, I now have no idea if any of those things would be allowed if they were to come about again.”

Student activist Roseman agrees. “When I think of the benefits of protests, I think of the staff strikes in 2023,” Roseman said. “I think that those protests were incredible and important to get the word out to students that this kind of injustice was going on.”

Students are concerned about personal repercussions under the rule. International students face the additional threat of deportation due to disciplinary actions. “They don’t know what they can do because they can’t risk getting in trouble,” said Stagg.

Staff are similarly afraid. “I have heard about … the chilling affect it will have,” Gonzales said.

“People fear for being brought up on misconduct or serious misconduct charges in which they potentially could lose their jobs.”