The Ministry of Education in Germany considered sanctions against the signatories of an open letter following the eviction of a pro-Palestinian university occupation. These academics complain that open debates are hardly possible any more.

After freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, academic freedom in Germany is also being jeopardised by the Gaza war. This is confirmed by a report by the ARD magazine programme “Panorama”, according to which the Federal Ministry of Education and Research had measures against hundreds of academics examined. The reason for this was an open letter criticising the police eviction of a pro-Palestinian occupation of Berlin’s Free University and calling for dialogue with the students. “The protection of universities as spaces for the critical public should have top priority,” said the statement, which was initially signed by almost 400 Berlin university lecturers. Over 1000 signatures were added later.

The Ministry of Education and Research is headed by Bettina Stark-Watzinger (Lieberal Party, FDP), who described herself as “stunned” shortly after the open letter was published. She told the newspaper “Bild” owned by Springer that the signatories were trivialising violence and insinuated that they were not “based on the constitution”.

According to “Panorama”, the Ministry subsequently initiated an internal review to determine whether funding could be cancelled for the signatories, who are known by name. In addition, a legal review was to be carried out to determine whether the letter contained anything of criminal relevance, including statements that were incitement to hatred or not covered by freedom of expression.

Ultimately, the examination revealed that the open letter was “still within the constitutionally protected area of freedom of expression”, explained the ministry in response to an enquiry from Panorama.

“That sounds too trivialising to me,” said Berlin professor of public law, Clemens Arzt, to “nd” following an enquiry. “After all, the university management obviously had significant encroachments on freedom of expression and academic freedom examined and only backtracked after the incident became known.” This may be due to employees at the specialist level of the ministry who, according to the email exchange published by Panorama, opposed the management from the outset.

The “nd” asked some of the first signatories and supporters of the open letter for a statement. Many wish to remain anonymous. “In my opinion, this is another expression of the authoritarian turn we are currently experiencing,” explains one teacher. “Colleagues fear for their professional future. Stark-Watzinger has sent out a signal of intimidation,” reads another response. “For me, this also means not relying on Germany as a centre of science in my career planning, even though I have been and still am very successful here,” explains another person.

Several of the respondents complained that open debates could hardly take place at Berlin universities anymore. This is due to the “sheer fear of saying or doing something that could violate rules that are still in the making”, is one of the statements. “It’s like a caricature of Carl Schmitt’s doctrine; everything is judged according to whether it ultimately benefits one side or the other. What also worries me is that Germany is projecting its own history of violence, which it has only half overcome, onto others,” says another signatory.

Others are openly calling for the education minister to resign. “You can see how this very German McCarthyism is throwing fundamental principles of academic freedom and democracy overboard in the name of reasons of state – in a supposedly liberal ministry and at a time of a massive shift to the right,” says Robin Celikates, one of the first signatories of the open letter, when asked by “nd”. According to the professor of philosophy at the Free University of Berlin, Stark-Watzinger is therefore no longer acceptable.

Published in German in „nd“.

Image: Instead of using police force to clear the site, the academics pleaded for dialogue with the students (Montecruz Foto).