Students Face Police Brutality While Fighting Fee Increases

Ellie Stephenson reports.

A protest against fee increases and course cuts at the University of Sydney today saw clashes between around 150 staff and students and tens of police. Police arrived in riot squads and on horses to repress the protest, which began at the lawns outside the quadrangle before marching to City Road, Victoria Park and up Broadway. The action saw at least 10 students fined and a number of protestors shoved, dragged and grabbed by police.  As the rally was occurring, an NTEU teach-in discussed the role of higher education in democratic society. 

Before the teach-in began, staff were approached by a group of 5 police, who demanded that the event should not exceed 20 people at a time. Staff reminded the police that the teach-in constituted an ordinary teaching event, and provided the officers with proof. The police refused to acknowledge the error, erroneously referring to the gathering as a protest. Staff insisted on their right to hold the event, saying “I don’t intend to be intimidated by police” and “It’s not usual when we’re getting ready to teach a class to have five police descend on us”. After a student, Mikaela Pappou, confronted the police, they claimed they had been invited onto campus by the University, although USyd later contradicted this claim in a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald.  

The teach-in also provided a platform to medical science student Oscar Chaffey, who delivered a moving speech to the crowd denouncing USyd’s planned cuts to the Faculty of Medicine and Health. “You’d think, during a global pandemic, the people who are trying to understand how diseases work and trying to learn how to fix them, would be probably some of the last people you would cut”, he argued, describing the staff cuts within the Faculty as “senseless and brutal”. 

Medical students protest the cuts.

Chaffey told the crowd that the Faculty is planning to fire the entire immunology and physiology departments and make them apply for half of the existing positions. He pointed out the absurdity of cutting disciplines like immunology and pharmacology during a pandemic and mourned that his positive experience at university would be a “figment of the past”. Students stood nearby bearing banners reading ‘No Cuts to Medical Science’, and ‘No Cuts, No Fees, No Corporate Universities’. 

Students march down Science Rd near the Quadrangle.

A student protest then departed down Eastern Avenue, running towards City Rd. As students attempted to walk down City Rd towards Victoria Park they were met with the first incidents of police violence, with a number of students roughly shoved or dragged onto the footpath. 

Tom Williams told Pulp he was “tripped, pushed and dragged off the road by police, who seemed to delight in the act”. He described the level of force as “severe” and said that police violence has seemed to escalate over recent months. He argued that “Violence doesn’t prevent COVID, masks and hand sanitizer do, and they’re a whole lot cheaper than a cop’s salary and kit. Invest in solutions that actually work.”

Students ran across Victoria Park, pursued by police horses, before running up towards the Quadrangle. They exited at the Forest Lodge gate, with a small group of students crossing Parramatta Road. The police response was heavy-handed, with a number of students detained violently. 

Cole Scott-Curwood, who is running for USyd Senate and was acting as a legal observer in the protest, told Pulp “I got pulled onto the road and told I’m being detained for being on the road and causing alarm while being in breach of public health order.”

Tim’s phone after he was grabbed by a police officer.

Tim Livingstone, also a legal observer, had a similar experience with police repression. After videoing another legal observer getting arrested “with a very tight grip on her arm”, he turned around to see Professor Simon Rice, an academic at USyd Law School, being “violently thrown to the ground”. He attempted to film the incident but was “grabbed from behind by a police officer”, with his phone shattered in the process. He was then given an infringement notice and told to move on. 

Jayfel Tulabing-Lee was also acting as a legal observer when she was assaulted by an officer, who dislocated her wrist while grabbing her phone from her. She told Pulp: “I am shaken, upset and traumatised. I now cannot see a police car, riot van or police officer without crying in a panic… the sheer brutality in [the police] throwing my comrades around, pushing them onto the floor now makes me fear the NSW Police.”

She added: “The Liberal Government and the University of Sydney enable this brutal behaviour against staff and students to protect their own corporate interests. We will not rest until this Bill is thrown away, quality education rectified and students’ rights and interests protected. We will be back.”

Incoming SRC President Swapnik Sanagavarapu described the police’s actions as “extremely brutal” and “disproportionate to the rally” but added “we will keep fighting until the HESA bill is repealed, cuts are reversed and education is free and equitable”.

Swapnik urged anyone who has been fined or who has footage of police brutality to contact the SRC.