UTS further marginalised Jewish students with complaints handling, report finds

University of Technology Sydney (UTS) mishandled complaints made by Jewish students after an on-campus protest, an investigation by a higher education watchdog has found.

The National Student Ombudsman (NSO) has made seven recommendations to UTS following an investigation into its handling of complaints about a 2025 pro-Palestine protest and its oversight of an external review into the matter.

It included recommendations the university apologises to the students for "poor handling of their complaints" and review its on-campus protest policy.

In a report released on Tuesday, the NSO said the complaints from Jewish students came after a National Day of Action for Palestine protest at UTS on March 26, 2025.

The ombudsman said some complaints related to comments made by an external guest speaker, who the report said had "singled out a Jewish student counterprotester" and said "'Jews […] should feel uncomfortable, […] and that includes that fellow over there".

According to the NSO report, the university received five complaints from students after the protest, who raised concerns that "attendees had singled out Jewish students, targeted them on the basis of their identity, and placed them at risk of physical harm".

Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson acknowledged the university "acted quickly" on the complaints by launching an external review, saying it was "taking seriously its obligations to ensure student safety".

However, according to the report, two students did not receive a response from UTS, which went against the university's own complaints policy, while others only received a generic reply.

"Students were unsatisfied by the university's impersonal letters; one student commented to us: 'It doesn't feel like there was any care behind the experience I went through'," the report said.

In a statement to the ABC, UTS said it had apologised to those students.

"The university also accepts that our handling of individual complaints relating to the March 2025 protest was inadequate and the complainants should have received more timely updates about the external review," the statement read.

External review investigated

The NSO also investigated the external review launched by UTS following the protest.

The report said the review was initially just focused on the protest event but was then expanded to investigate an open table discussion about the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack that was being run by the Australian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS).

The report said the external review made an incorrect finding that AUJS had not received proper approval to host that discussion, which was later published in a university action plan document.

The university told the ABC it should not have published the action plan without giving AUJS the opportunity to review and respond to the claim first.

"We have apologised to AUJS for this and removed the action plan from the website several months ago," UTS said in a statement.

UTS said it would implement six out of the seven recommendations made by the ombudsman, but declined to reissue the university action plan as suggested.

AUJS said it welcomed the report, but it was "disappointing" that the planning document would not be reissued.

"The claim remains in media coverage and in the minds of the students and staff who read it," AUJS said in a statement.

UTS told the ABC that since March 2025, it had "strengthened how protests and events are managed on campus to better ensure the safety of our community and undertaken additional, substantial work to combat antisemitism".