History teachers are terrified by new hate speech laws, with good reason

Imagine a typical year 10 history classroom. A student raises a hand to ask the teacher, “Why did so many Germans support the Nazis?” The teacher begins to explain the economic desperation of Weimar Germany, the scapegoating of Jewish people and the power of Nazi propaganda. Another student follows with a question about contemporary conflicts. The discussion becomes lively as students grapple with how prejudice spreads, how propaganda operates and how ordinary people can be drawn towards hateful ideologies.

This is what good history teaching looks like. Students are thinking critically, and teachers are carefully guiding them through difficult ideas. As a former teacher, lawyer and now an education researcher, I have seen first-hand how essential these conversations are to fostering young people’s understanding of social cohesion and democratic life.

Under NSW’s new hate-speech regulations, now expanded to specifically include teacher conduct, that teacher may hesitate. Could explaining historical antisemitism be misconstrued as vilifying Jewish people? If a student raises a contemporary conflict, could answering their question expose the teacher to complaints? When educators must calculate legal risk before responding to student questions, these teachable moments begin to vanish, replaced by silence, evasion or superficial answers that sidestep students’ genuine concerns.

More than ever, we need classroom discussions that build social cohesion across political, racial and religious differences. Instead, NSW risks making teachers too afraid to facilitate the very conversations young people need.

It is important to recognise that NSW teachers already operate under a comprehensive web of legal and professional constraints. Existing race-hate laws prohibit vilification. Anti-discrimination legislation sets clear boundaries. Professional codes of conduct articulate expected behaviour. Together, these frameworks provide extensive oversight of teachers’ conduct inside and outside the classroom. The proposed new hate-speech regulations do not fill a gap. They create confusion.

When multiple legal frameworks overlap, the resulting ambiguity does not protect students. It paralyses educators. It also creates serious concerns about procedural fairness, since teachers may be required to defend their lessons to the NSW Education Standards Authority without clear definitions of what counts as a breach or what kind of evidence is valid. In such a system, interpretations can shift with political winds or community pressure. This is not a recipe for safe classrooms, it is a recipe for silence.

Effective teaching requires intellectual courage. Teachers need to follow student questions into uncomfortable territory, respond dynamically and help young people wrestle with complex moral and historical ideas. This depends on trust and professional confidence – precisely what the new laws replace with defensive caution. When educators fear legal consequences, they avoid challenging topics entirely. Students quickly learn that some questions are too dangerous to ask, that certain subjects exist in a zone of fearful silence. This is the opposite of what education should cultivate.

The laws also risk creating an unhealthy culture of surveillance. Teachers may document lessons defensively, students may monitor peers and teachers for perceived offences, and parents may feel pressure to record or escalate concerns. When vigilance replaces trust, classrooms can no longer support genuine intellectual risk-taking.

The irony is unavoidable. The discussions most likely to make teachers anxious under these laws are exactly the ones that help students recognise and reject hate speech. Teaching about colonialism requires confronting racist ideologies that justified dispossession. Holocaust education requires examining antisemitic propaganda. Preparing students for democratic participation requires learning how prejudice operates, how discrimination spreads and how to distinguish between legitimate criticism and vilification.

These are not comfortable conversations. They require teachers who can guide students through harmful ideas without endorsing them, who can explain how hate speech functions without reproducing it, and who can create space for difficult questions without fear of legal consequences.

Most fundamentally, these laws signal a profound distrust of teachers. They assume that educators, already governed by rigorous professional standards and existing legislation, need additional legal constraints to prevent them from harming students. This assumption is both inaccurate and counterproductive.

If we are genuinely concerned about hate speech in schools, we need to take a different approach. Invest in professional learning that helps teachers facilitate difficult discussions, provide clear guidance developed in consultation with educators, and robust support systems for when conflicts arise. We should trust and resource the professionals already navigating these challenges daily.

Schools should be places where young people learn to grapple with division and difference. Instead, NSW is creating legal minefields. Teachers may well navigate them by avoiding the terrain altogether.

Dr Claire Golledge is a senior lecturer in the school of education and social work at the University of Sydney.

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