Last week federal education minister, Dan Tehan, proposed to the vice-chancellors of Australia’s Group of Eight universities that student activists should be responsible for paying the security costs of protests which they organise.

Since the introduction of voluntary student unionism in 2005, the majority of campus activism is carried out with already limited resources. Should students be required to pay to protest, such resources would be further depleted.

Tehan’s contentions further discount the fact that the student movement has historically been a force for social change, both in Australia and abroad. As one of the most politically active campuses in the country, Sydney university’s own student history is one of radical protest and activism, from the Vietnam war to the continuing fight for gender equality.

In a year where the world has been reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the student protests of 1968 in Paris, one would think it inspiring that the tradition has continued into 21st century Australia.

Some politicians and public commentators are not so nostalgic. This year has seen a rise in conservative interference in campus protest and political speech. It’s difficult to pick up a megaphone without invoking the ire of conservative Australia.

Earlier this year, Labor MLC Greg Donnelly tried to involve himself in a confidential investigation concerning three Sydney university students who participated in a pro-choice protest during orientation week. In a speech to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, as well as in a series of letters, he lobbied the university’s vice-chancellor and senate to serve them a harsh penalty.

Donnelly has little jurisdiction in student matters, particularly those concerning the fight for reproductive rights. This incident betrays a flaw in the conservative push for free speech: it’s clear that the extent of free speech that they are willing to afford progressive movements comes with a caveat of doing so as quietly and politely as possible.

This particular form of righteousness is mirrored in the recent uproar against protestors who rallied against sex-therapist Bettina Arndt’s “Fake Rape Crisis Tour” as it descended on the Sydney university campus this month. Members of the Women’s Collective, among others, have been reported to the vice chancellor for having participated in this protest, their suspension and expulsion from the university encouraged by Arndt.

The interference of the state in student activism is nothing new. The threat of losing commonwealth scholarships was one that loomed over the heads of student activists in 1968, where the prime minister at the time, John Gorton, vowed to revoke the scholarships of any student apprehended at a demonstration.

Though conservatives such as Donnelly and Arndt would have us believe otherwise, the student movement remains a considerable force for social change both on and off campus. The campaign against sexual assault on campus at Sydney university has been incredibly successful.

The work of student activists prompted an Australian Human Rights Commission report into sexual assault on university campuses. The university has listened to the demands of student activists in implementing a sexual assault reporting portal, a consent module and a sexual assault specific counsellor. While a lot of these things require further work, the fact that they exist at all points to the fact that student movements are as important, relevant and necessary as they were 50 years ago.

In light of this, it is unfathomable to think that Arndt would be able to waltz onto campus, spouting a rhetoric which inherently undermines such activism and reform, and expect the student movement to passively sit back and let it happen without some form of protest.

For conservative members of parliament and prominent public figures to claim to uphold the principle of free speech, while simultaneously trying to stifle that speech when it comes from the megaphones of student activists with whom they happen to disagree, is bizarre. What is even more disconcerting is that they, like Gorton, are happy to deprive these activists of their education in urging universities to take disproportionate disciplinary action, such as expulsion.

Protests have never been, and will never be, entirely civil. The point of protesting is to make noise and be heard. The war-cry of conservative columnists is that protests too quickly and too often become overly violent. It’s prudent to question whether a bunch of rowdy 20-something students is more violent than a discourse that tries to deny the fact that the rape on campus is a real and serious problem – indeed, a violent one.

• Jessica Syed and Madeline Ward are University of Sydney Students’ Representative Council’s women’s officers 2018