WESTEND Disrupting the university: The stifling of academic freedom in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

At universities, professors are increasingly being dismissed or demoted from high positions for allegedly disruptive behaviors. But when is a professor disruptive? In the media, you read about unpopular statements, false attitudes, bullying or abuse of power. But that is only part of the story. This book looks at the structures behind the cases and shows that the dismissals repeatedly affect certain groups of people. Instead of performance orientation, a 'right to certification' is gaining ground. Instead of academic freedom, there is increasing pressure to conduct research only in line with certain political ideologies. Based on their empirical surveys, Heike Egner and Anke Uhlenwinkel present worrying findings and remind us of the once seemingly unshakeable principles of free research and free teaching at our universities. Among other things, the authors have examined the questions of which groups of people were primarily affected by the dismissals, what accusations were made against them, what the respective course of proceedings was, and what role the media played. The findings unearthed in the process are disturbing, for the facts suggest that not only has there been a sharp increase in the number of professors who have been prematurely removed from university service against their will, but that qualitatively questionable developments have also been observed. Those affected seem to belong particularly often to certain sociological groups whose members are presumed to have been able to pursue a career in academia only through extraordinary personal effort and talent, to feel committed to the ethos of achievement, and to be particularly attached to the traditional, Humboldtian understanding of academia.