06/14/2024 – 20:32
Pro-Palestinian protests at universities triggered an arm wrestling match between researchers and the Minister of Education, who even considered cutting funding for professors who defended freedom of expression. Affiliated to the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP), the German Minister of Education, Bettina Stark- Watzinger says he considers freedom a valuable asset, the foundation of everything: “The way we live in our country, our democracy, our rule of law and our well-being.”
The declaration was made recently on the occasion of the Year of Science, just a few days before the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the German Constitution, celebrated on May 23rd.
Challenging Stark-Watzinger’s liberal image, a letter signed by more than 1,200 researchers accuses the minister of abuse of power and intimidation, and of attacking the much-vaunted freedom – academic, to boot. Because of this, the group demands her departure from her position.
Context
In early May, a camp in solidarity with Palestinians erected on the campus of the Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin) was broken up by the police. The students were protesting against the action of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip and even tried to invade university rooms and auditoriums.
Before the eviction took place, a few hundred teachers published an open letter opposing the police action. Without showing solidarity with the group’s demands, the professors simply defended the right to peaceful protest – something that, in their view, also includes the occupation of the university.
Doubts about the constitutionality of the minister’s action
The letter aroused Stark-Watzinger’s indignation. In an interview with a German newspaper, she questioned whether the supporters of the letter were acting in violation of the Constitution. Later, it was discovered that the minister went further: she asked the ministry to analyze the possibility of cutting funding for teachers.
The case shook politics and academia. Perplexed, many asked themselves how it was possible that a liberal policy could question the right to free expression of opinion.
One of them is Thomas Jarzombek, deputy and spokesman for the conservative group of the CDU/CSU parties in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, for matters related to educational and research policy. Jarzombek says he wonders “to what extent the minister’s own action is constitutional”.
For the president of the German Conference of University Rectors, Walter Rosenthal, it is possible that people have different opinions about things that are said, but wanting to associate this with the “fundability” of a research is a violation of the freedom of science.
Impacts on Germany’s reputation among scientists
In a new letter of protest, signed by more than 1,200 professors – this time also from other countries –, Stark-Watzinger was accused of trying to intimidate academics.
“The repressive examination of researchers who make public their critical position in relation to political decisions is something known in authoritarian regimes”, say the signatories.
According to them, just the impression that free discussion in society is being repressed is enough to damage Germany’s reputation as an international destination for researchers.
Among the authors of the letter are famous intellectuals in Germany, such as democracy researcher Wolfgang Merkel, philosopher Rahel Jaeggi, sociologist Hartmut Rosa and translator and professor Susan Bernofsky, from Columbia University (USA).
Bernofsky followed similar protests in April at her university in New York and criticized police action. “I am horrified by attempts in Germany and the US to suppress and silence pro-Palestinian statements. This is a violation of academic freedom and the right to freedom of expression,” she tells DW.
Bernofsky, who says she is Jewish, says student protests in the US have been regularly smeared as anti-Semitic in the American press.
Protests around the world against the war in Gaza
Protests against the war that Israel is waging against Hamas in the Gaza Strip are not exclusive to German or American university environments. For a few months now, occupations and acts have been taking place at universities across Europe, in Australia and Mexico.
Bernofsky says she and other colleagues worry that politics is trying to control higher education institutions.
Asked about the matter, Minister Stark-Watzinger’s office states in a note that it submitted the open letter from FU Berlin teachers against the eviction of the camp to an “internal legal examination”, but that it found that the “content was covered by the right to freedom of expression”.
With this, according to the ministry, there is no longer anything to discuss about possible consequences of the ministry’s action, since “cutting funds in reaction to the open letter” was not an option to be debated by the leadership from that point on.
Stark-Watzinger still owes an answer about Germany’s reputation in the international academic community. When that moment comes, she will not be able to dodge the question of what her conception of academic freedom is.
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