From The Australian, 16 October 2024, by Joanna Panagopoulos
Catholic Schools NSW CEO Dallas McInerney.
Catholic schools are vowing not to repeat the mistakes of Australian universities in “refusing to confront” anti-Semitic activity on campus, amid a renewed focus to “quash bigotry through education”.
CEO of Catholic Schools NSW Dallas McInerney said schools had chosen to “walk the other direction” to avoid the “utter failure” seen recently at universities amid an increase in “social-media fuelled” anti-Semitism among school-aged children.
Mr McInerney said Catholic schools had increased the number of shared events and inter-school visits between Jewish schools and Christian and Catholic schools, adding that “education is the best antidote to bigotry”.
…Catholic Schools jointly hosted a roundtable this week with the Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism in Australia, Jillian Segal, and representatives from 3000 NSW schools, and the secretary of the Department of Education, Murat Dizdar. It heard that the increased prevalence of anti-Semitic events among school students had largely been fuelled by social media.
With all school sectors present, Mr McInerney said “we wanted to send a powerful message, and by inference, say to the universities, we’re not going to make your mistake”, adding that higher education institutions had been “either incapable of or refusing to confront anti-Semitic activity in their institutions”.
“We just cannot let our schools be the cultural flashpoint that the universities have become,” he said.
Mr McInerney also criticised activist teachers such as those who wore keffiyehs into the classroom, saying “education is not there to indoctrinate, it’s there to enlighten”…