CANBERRA, June 7 (Xinhua) -- The head of the Australian National University (ANU) has said the university will review its investments in weapons manufacturers in response to a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus.
Appearing before a Senate hearing on Wednesday, vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell said that ANU's socially responsible investment policy, which was last updated 10 years ago, would be reviewed by the university's council at a meeting on June 14.
ANU students in April set up an encampment at the university's main campus in Canberra's northern suburbs as an act of protest against ties with Israeli institutions and weapons manufacturers amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The Senate committee heard on Wednesday that as of November 2023 ANU held shares worth 171,000 Australian dollars (114,000 U.S. dollars) in defense and security company BAE Systems, which Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi said had supplied F-35 fighter jets to Israel.
Additionally, deputy vice-chancellor Lachlan Blackhall said ANU had contracts with a small number of defense companies and had received philanthropic donations from them.
Asked if the university had sought legal advice on whether the links with weapons companies made it complicit in genocide, Blackhall said he rejects the notion that ANU is involved in genocide.
Bell told the hearing that 10 ANU students have had disciplinary action lodged against them and two have been expelled since the conflict in Gaza broke out in October last year.
"Academic freedom is not absolute, it's governed by and constrained by Australian law as well as our internal policies as a university," she said.
Protesters in late May agreed to move the pro-Palestine encampment at ANU to a different site on campus after university administrators cited serious safety concerns that it was blocking an emergency evacuation route. ■
