A prominent academic and Palestinian advocate has had her $870,000 grant suspended after the education minister requested the board of the Australian Research Council (ARC) investigate her fellowship.
Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, the recipient of an ARC Future Fellowship and an academic at Macquarie University, has faced sustained criticism from the Coalition, some Jewish bodies and media outlets for controversial comments on Israel, including alleging Zionists had “no claim or right to cultural safety”.
Abdel-Fattah’s project, which was awarded funding by the ARC in 2022, was commissioned to research Arab and Muslim-Australian social movements.
On 31 January, the education minister, Jason Clare, wrote to the ARC board requesting they investigate her research grant as a “matter of priority”, expressing concerns over her speech at an anti-racism symposium headed by the Queensland University of Technology’s Carumba Institute.
During her speech, Abdel-Fattah said “I look to ways to bend the rules, and I subvert them”, revealing she had refused an ARC requirement to hold an academic conference as a condition of her grant, instead inviting women to contribute revolutionary quotes.
The chair of the ARC, Prof Peter Shergold AC, confirmed at Senate estimates on Thursday evening that the grant had been suspended pending further investigation. It was now up to Macquarie University to provide evidence that the grant had been managed appropriately.
Shergold said the ARC had begun to look into the case before the education minister’s correspondence or articles in media outlets, and said the ARC had been engaging with Macquarie University “for a year” on the academic.
“The ARC, every year, investigates 10, a dozen, sometimes more, grants to make sure they are administered appropriately by the university that is responsible,” he said.
“This is not an issue about freedom of speech … it’s about the acquittal of public funds.”
A spokesperson for Macquarie University said it had complied with the suspension notice to “immediately cease all activity” in relation to Abdel-Fattah’s research project while an investigation took place.
They said Macquarie had engaged an audit and accounting firm to ensure grant funds had been used only for “eligible expenditure items” and spending was compliant with the project’s scope.
The university would also appoint two international research academics to examine compliance with “a range of research integrity matters”, and advise whether “all parties involved in the project have disclosed any actual or potential conflict that have the potential to influence the research”.
Findings were expected in the second half of the year, they said.
Abdel-Fattah said the suspension of her research grant was a “test” about the extent to which public institutions were “willing to safeguard university independence” and the “foundations of intellectual inquiry”.
“The virulent anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia I am being subjected to does not just impact me as an individual,” she said.
“It’s about the integrity of our higher education system, and the right of academics to work free from censorship, political interference and repression.”
The Greens deputy leader and spokesperson for higher education, Mehreen Faruqi, questioned the education department at estimates about why Clare had requested the intervention of the ARC after introducing reforms last year to end the days of “political interference” in the council.
Faruqi argued his request was “based on allegations in the racist Murdoch media”.
“As a brown Muslim woman who was an academic in a previous life I find it deeply, deeply disturbing for a white education minister to lead the charge against Dr Abdel-Fattah, an Arab woman, and for what?” she said.
“For the crime of speaking at an anti-racist conference.”
The assistant minister for education, Anthony Chisholm, replied that the minister was motivated to write to the ARC because Abdel-Fattah had said at the anti-racism conference that she was “bending the rules of the grant”.
“That is something the minister thought needed to be clarified,” he said. “I’m sure he would want to make sure that the integrity of the ARC is maintained.”
Pressed at estimates by Faruqi about why the ARC had suspended the grant, which she labelled as “legitimise[ing] an article in the Australian”, Shergold said he was “bewildered”.
“If your job is on behalf of government, to administer public moneys, and … it’s brought to my attention a significant allegation that money is being misused, the first thing that I will do is have an investigation,” he said.
“I haven’t prejudged this case … we talk to universities about where grants are being spent under the purposes that were intended … it is not unusual.”
The shadow minister for education, Sarah Henderson, welcomed the suspension of Abdel-Fattah’s grant, which she had been lobbying for over the past 10 months.
“It is only after sustained pressure from the Coalition and Jewish organisations, coupled with revelations in The Australian, that Minister Clare finally asked the ARC to investigate,” she said in a statement.
“We need strong action to ensure Jewish students and staff feel safe and supported at all times.”
