E It is almost exemplary how the Science Senator has put the AfD in its place. In the science committee On Monday she made it clear that the management of the Technical University of Berlin (TU) had in no way violated the neutrality requirement when it allowed the group “Students Against the Right” to to hold an action conference at the TU. With the event, the group wanted to inform about the establishment of a new AfD youth association in Giessen and mobilize protests against it. The AfD had complained about the event in advance and later made the accusation that the university thereby fulfills its duty of neutrality have injured.
Science Senator Ina Czyborra (SPD) now makes it unmistakably clear: This is pure mimicry of the AfD. She said it in different words, but no less firmly. “The neutrality requirement under civil service law does not mean that universities should be a politics-free space,” Czyborra makes clear. “In fact, it is even necessary not to restrict students’ political discourse, which is covered by freedom of expression, through paternalistic intervention.” TU President Geraldine Rauch acted completely correctly.
Events at universities cover the entire spectrum of political views
The senator places the mobilization conference in the context of all events taking place at the universities. “There are a variety of events in our universities every day,” she said. The bottom line is that the events at universities as a whole cannot be assumed to show that individual political opinions are favored or suppressed, but rather “they represent the range of political opinions that can be represented within the framework of freedom of expression without violating our Basic Law,” said Czyborra. There is no violation of the neutrality requirement here.
Revealing for FU and HU
The Science Senator’s statement also exposes the rejections from the Free University (FU) and the Humboldt University (HU). The students against the right also wanted to hold mobilization events at these universities on the same day. But both managements withdrew their approval. The pressure from the AfD According to their statements, sometimes more (HU) and sometimes less (FU) played a role. They would have shown backbone if they had let the students do something against the right.
The good thing: Czyborra’s answer in the Science Committee now provides clarity. It clearly also applies beyond the individual case of the action conferences. And as exemplary as the senator’s words are, she still has to put up with one criticism: that they are only now coming with this decisiveness. The opportunity would have existed in the pastthat your house is examining the question of neutrality legally, for example in the case of a similar AfD request almost a year ago.
Czyborra could have legally examined the question of neutrality in the past
Czyborra referred (quite correctly) to university autonomy, but also to the fact that the Senate assesses “events with decidedly party-political advertising or prevention purposes” as “a violation of the general requirement of religious and ideological neutrality” of universities.
If she had already been legally examined back then and made her current statement, the universities would have been much better prepared. The fact that the AfD is coming with Mimimi is not new. Czyborra’s words will now at least help the universities to clearly expose the Mimimi in future situations and to clearly resist it with support.