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In the last three years, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war on Hamas’s attack has staged student protests around the world and put the university administrators in an uncomfortable position to take political positions – or not trying to make their best.
One of German’s top research universities, Rwth Aachen rector Ularich Ridiger said, “These days, there is hardly any crisis that does not kill the campus with unbridled force.”
In countries such as Switzerland and Germany, universities have generally tried to remain neutral, which in turn has raised questions about whether it is a realistic goal, and what can such a neutrality be.
In early March, ETH Zurich received a questionnaire from the Trump administration, asking whether a research project that receives American funding was in line with new government policies on diversity, equity and inclusion. According to ETH Zurich spokesman Vanessa Blich, the university, which has received an average of $ 2.5 million from the US government in the last ten years, decided not to respond. Later in March, the university announced that it would not make an official statement on geopolitical issues.
Switzerland guarantees research and freedom of teaching. At the same time, Swiss universities have to follow laws that ban the export of technologies that may have both citizens and military applications designed in universities. As a result, Eth Zurich announced last year that it would increase investigation from foreign students, especially from China. This decision was condemned by students and researchers, some of whom described the policy as a conflict with the country’s geopolitical neutrality.
In Germany, where most universities are funded by the government, when it comes to party politics, institutions have to be politically neutral, and follow the German law. But this is its limit – the universities are free to do so when not doing so will threaten their functioning, and they are allowed to maintain values inherent in the constitution of the country, a policy that allows for extensive interpretation.
Often, these actions are relatively uncontrolled. After the invasion of Russia’s Ukraine in 2022, universities in Constance, Halle and Cologne, along with others, issued statements expressing solidarity with Ukraine. The following year, Dresseden’s Technical University launched a campaign for its research companion, economist Gubad Ibdogalu, which can be released from jail in Azerbaijan. In the early 2024, HRK, an organization that represents the reatters of the University of Germany, called upon the scientific community of the country to stand against discrimination in response to a secret meeting between AFD party and new-Nazi sympathy.
However, Gaza has complex cases in the Israeli war. As universities all over the world have been influenced by the so -called causes of state theory, the German institutions have been affected by the so -called cause of state theory, which the country protects and protects the Israeli state. As a result, many German universities have rapidly held partnership with Israeli universities, and in some cases, they doubled.
The Carlzruhe Institute of Technology, a German Research University, which considers itself politically neutral, said that in March, this Tel Aviv University, Haifa and Hasob University, was going to intensify their relations with a Arab-Israel Innovation Center. The university said that the kit does not want “to exclude or separate itself”, but promotes dialogue.
The large -scale German society is more important for Israel’s functions. One of Germany’s most important opinion surveys, the ZDF Politteer Meter, indicates that already in early 2024, only 18% of the respondents still admitted that Israeli’s military activity was justified in Gaza and 87% wanted Western governments to increase the pressure on the Judic State of Jewish state to assist the assistance.
As the government has taken additional steps to protect Israel to protect Israel, under the banner of fighting antismitism, questions have been raised about how far it is. Last November, HRK pushed back against the news that the German Parliament had intended to call the country’s high adduration sector, which had failed to act more decisively against antismitism. The organization of reactors “said the move” impartially not necessary “and” the university did not say useful against the background of autonomy and educational freedom. ” Three months later, Bundestag made a proposal to universities that they called a proposal to take a strong stand against antisemitism.
While she thinks that universities should try to clarify to take geographical positions, Jatt Gunthir, the rector of the Bremen University, believes that no one should be prevented from standing for the Constitution of Germany, the original law. “We are not neutral to the original law, we are committed to it. This is the foundation that guarantees freedom of research and teaching in the first place,” he said. In an article, Günther wrote for a German science and education website, appealed to the scientific community to fight for democracy in a moment in which it is attacking.
Jonathan Drsh, political secretary of the German National Union of Students, said that such action is important, but he warned that the political stand should be taken systematically, not in response to external pressures. He said, “Universities should not be pawn.
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