Racism is “systemic” at Australia’s universities, according to a landmark report found students have mocked their Palestinian peers with shouts of “terrorism”, some students have been followed by campus security and First Nations students have been compared to “petrol sniffers” in lecture halls.

The report also found Jewish students were fearful to attend classes, with one harassed for wearing their kippa walking to class and another who described people screaming “send them to the camps” at a group of Jews on campus.

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s national study was commissioned as a recommendation of the Universities Accord to investigate the prevalence and impact of racism at universities for the first time.

It found universities had failed to meet their duty of care and complaints processes were “Kafkaesque” in their failings, with staff and students exposed to racial slurs, taunts and, at times, physical assaults in academic and outdoor campus settings.

Of the 76,000 students and staff that were surveyed, 70% had experienced indirect racism, including hearing or seeing racist behaviour directed at their community. Some 15% had experienced direct racism at university.

The rates were highest for religious Jewish and Palestinian respondents (more than 90%), followed by First Nations, Chinese, Jewish (secular), Middle Eastern and Northeast Asian respondents (over 80%). International students experienced racism more frequently than domestic students or staff.

At the same time, just 6% of people who experienced direct racism made a complaint to their university, citing fear of consequences and low trust in systems.

The report comes after the government committed to an antisemitism taskforce and controversial report card system in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.

The Greens’ deputy leader and antiracism spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, accused the federal government of “cherrypicking one type of racism over others” by backing the antisemitism envoy’s plan while yet to respond to findings on Islamophobia.

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“The Albanese government has been gaslighting and dismissing anti-Palestinian racism for the last two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but … the government can no longer refuse to accept this reality,” she said.

The report found racism towards particular communities spiked during global events, with First Nations racism spiking during the voice to parliament referendum, anti-Asian sentiment increasing during the Covid-19 pandemic and an unprecedented rise in antisemitism, anti-Palestinian sentiment and Islamophobia during the Israel-Gaza war.

Anti-Palestinian racism expressed in the report included students being required to provide official death certificates of their family in Gaza before extensions or deferrals were considered, being physically assaulted and being afraid to express their views over fears they would be deported.

“This only indicates a rampant culture of silencing and erasure of Palestinians and their allies, including members of the Jewish community,” said the executive officer of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, Katie Shammas.

The Australasian Union of Jewish Students’ advocacy and public relations manager, Liat Granot, said it was “horrifying”, but not surprising that 94% of Jewish respondents had experienced some form of antisemitism.

“Since October 7, 2023, Jewish students have faced a clear and sustained increase in antisemitism,” she said. “For too long, our concerns have been ignored, minimised or dismissed as ‘political’.”

The race discrimination commissioner, Giridharan Sivaraman, said racism was “systemic” and “deeply embedded” in universities.

He pointed to an Aboriginal respondent who made a racism complaint but was told 12 months later: “We can’t proceed with your complaint because it’s been more than 12 months since the conduct occurred”.

“That’s almost Kafkaesque in its inefficiency and the way in which it suppresses a complaint,” he said.

Another First Nations student in the report recalled a lecturer making a “petrol sniffing” comment about Aboriginal people, while a third was accused of academic misconduct due to receiving support from an Indigenous tutorial assistance scheme.

African students and staff were also targeted, with one academic called a “black shit”, “fug-ly” and “monkey”, and others followed by campus security in an intimidating manner.

The report made 47 recommendations, including a national framework for antiracism in tertiary education headed by a working group and regular complaints reporting.

Only 11 universities were found to have advanced, stand-alone antiracism strategies, and just one regularly reported on antiracism.

The education minister, Jason Clare, said the federal government would “consider” the report’s recommendations as part of its broader higher education reforms, including introducing legislation in the coming months to better empower the regulator.

The commonwealth received the report in December but it was not publicly released until Tuesday.

“I … want to change the way our universities act so they are safe places for students wherever they come from,” Clare said.

“That means lifting the standards that universities have to meet, but it also means empowering the university regulator with the sort of powers they need to make sure that universities do act.”

Universities Australia (UA) said the report was “deeply troubling” and “sector-wide action” was needed.

It backed the report’s calls for a national working group to develop a coordinated action plan for the sector, to facilitate “consistent standards, stronger accountability and measurable progress across all institutions”.

The president of the National Union of Students, Felix Hughes, said students had been saying “for years” that racism was “common, under-reported and harmful”.

“Voluntary policies and internal reviews haven’t delivered the change students need,” he said. “The federal government must now …[act] so consistent protections and reporting systems exist at every university, not just the ones that choose to act.”