Teachers could be fired for breaking conduct rules that ban hate speech, including outside the classroom, under changes a government insists are not an attack on free speech.
Staff at more than 3000 NSW schools are affected after the state government on Tuesday unveiled an explicit ban on hate speech in the code of conduct.
The bolstered rules apply to staff working at government, independent and Catholic schools.
It follows cases in which prominent teachers or principals have been accused of hate speech, including a principal at an Islamic school in regional NSW who was stood down in January for inflammatory social media posts.
"We know young people are impressionable and we know that people who are in positions of authority, particularly educators, are responsible for shaping their views and outlooks in the years ahead," NSW Premier Chris Minns told reporters.
"If they are tipping bigoted, uninformed or racist information into young minds, it can have devastating effects on the cohesion in our community."
Deputy Premier and Education Minister Prue Car defended the measure as a small change that empowers the regulator, NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), to act immediately by including the phrase hate speech in the code of conduct.
The code of conduct will apply outside the classroom and extend to social media posts, Mr Minns said.
"We're not going to wait for a police prosecution and then a court case. If it's clear to NESA that there's been a breach ... then sanctions will apply," he warned.
The premier referred to racial hatred laws passed in August 2025 known as section 93ZAA of the Crime Act that would have to be violated.
It's reasonable for educators to follow the legal threshold of inciting or vilifying people based on race, he said.
The latest changes build on a suite of reforms to state and federal hate speech laws proposed after two gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah event at Bondi Beach in December, killing 15 people.
Mr Minns said the measures would not specifically target and discriminate against Palestinian students or staff for expressing their cultural identity.
"It's not an attack on freedom of speech or association with that cause or concern about Palestinians and innocent civilians in Gaza," he said.
"It's not designed to clamp down the freedom of expression by students."
One teacher reported being called into a principal's office in 2024 and asked not to wear his keffiyeh during a school-themed day aimed at celebrating multiculturalism.
They had been asked to don the Palestinian cultural scarf on previous occasions.
Other educators have reported censorship of discussions about Palestine in a 2025 report by the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network.
