New “hate speech” guidelines under which school staff could be more easily sacked for comments in and outside the classroom could silence discussion of the killing in Gaza in New South Wales schools, teachers and legal experts say.
The NSW government has moved to amend codes of conduct to explicitly prohibit hate speech across the state’s more than 3,000 government, independent and Catholic schools, effective immediately from Tuesday.
The premier, Chris Minns, said the new NSW Education Standards Authority (Nesa) guidelines, announced as part of the response to the Bondi beach terror attack, would follow existing hate speech legislation, but decisions on dismissing teachers who contravened them would not depend on the police prosecuting an offence.
“If it’s clear to Nesa that there’s been there’s been a breach … then sanctions will apply,” Minns said.
The change will apply to conduct outside the classroom, includi
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