Macquarie University is engaged in political censorship. Without the slightest justification, it has effectively banned the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), an anti-war and socialist movement of students, from campus.

We the undersigned demand an immediate end to this gross attack on democratic rights. Management's campaign against the IYSSE makes a mockery of the university's claim to "strive for the extraordinary by challenging convention and embracing different views." Instead, the university is enforcing a stultifying conformism, aimed at preventing students from encountering and discussing "different views."

On May 29 university management declared that it would not affiliate an IYSSE club, despite it meeting all the stipulated requirements. Management claimed this was because the IYSSE has the same "aims" as the Macquarie Socialists. The IYSSE has extensively documented the gulf that separates it from this organisation, and the Macquarie Socialists themselves had issued a statement which "reject[s] the claim that we share the same aim and purpose as IYSSE."

But thus far, the university has refused to reverse its decision. That demonstrates that this is political censorship. The only explanation is that the IYSSE is being targeted, as the sole student club that has advanced a consistent socialist alternative to militarism and war.

That is demonstrated by the context. On April 4, the IYSSE held a meeting on campus, opposing the US-NATO war against Ukraine and fighting for a socialist movement to prevent it from spiralling into a global nuclear catastrophe.

The IYSSE made plain its complete opposition to the reactionary invasion of Ukraine, by the Russian regime, which represents a capitalist oligarchy. But because our meeting sheeted home responsibility for the conflict to American imperialism and its allies, including the Australian government, and called for the unity of Ukrainian and Russian workers, it was attacked by far-right Ukrainian nationalists who demanded that we be censored.

It is that program that Macquarie University is now enacting, though behind a cowardly veil of lies, evasions and silence. This is part of a global attack on the IYSSE's anti-war perspective.

If Macquarie University's political censorship is allowed to stand, it will have a chiling impact. Management will be able to determine what students and staff can and cannot discuss. Inevitably, the parameters of legitimate discussion will be determined by the corporations, governments and military-intelligence agencies with which university management collaborates closely.

We demand an end to the de facto ban on the IYSSE, the immediate affiliation of its club and full democratic rights for students.