The BIPOC mural is a collaborative community art piece, found outside the BIPOC Base. Over the past few years, this mural has faced vandalism and defacement, as well as removal by the ANU itself only 12 hours after an initial restoration. 

The ANU has provided several explanations for this initial removal, including potentially discriminatory messaging and damage to university property. Notably, Deputy Vice Chancellor Grady Venville stated that references to the phrase “from the river to the sea” were “making people feel unsafe”.

More recently on July 23, the BIPOC Department hosted an event to restore the mural. However, following this event, the mural has once again been removed by the ANU, this time for breaching the poster policy.

The poster policy, implemented February 6, prohibits chalking except on exterior footpaths which are exposed to rain. It comes as part of ANU’s policy updates cited in the 2024 ANU Submission for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities.

Following this second removal, BIPOC Officer Aleesya Amirizal released a statement about the repeated incidents of defacement, vandalism and erasure. “This latest action,” Aleesya writes, “reflects an ongoing pattern of hostility toward BIPOC political expression, and a disregard toward our autonomy.”

Among growing concerns about the poster policy being “selectively enforced in ways that silence marginalised voices,” and the suppression of student activism, Aleesya calls for the ANU to engage with “the students whom its decisions affect most.”

The ANU was contacted for comment, but have not responded at the time of publication.