An attack on the freedom of science

The case study conducted by the authors, based on an analysis of 49 recent cases of dismissal/demotion of professors at German universities, gives them reason to revisit the actualized problem of restricting or manipulating academic freedoms in favor of asserting a mainstream political agenda. If a university is, first of all, a state institution, and its professors are civil servants, then how is it possible today to defend the university’s right to positive differences and the professors’ right to an alternative point of view, defending innovative ideas or non—traditional views? This question both repeats and varies the problematization of the dual status of science, which was exemplary formulated in Max Weber’s report Science as a Vocation (1917).

The task of science is to provide individuals and society with knowledge that is otherwise inaccessible. And this task is now clearly a topic of discussion both in teaching and in scientific research. Continuing Weber’s line of critical reflection, the authors summarize their research by stating that today we have reached a science that no longer provides individuals and society with a framework within which actions that are also morally justified can be reflected and justified. Instead, we are dealing with science, which is shaped by politics. Scientists and teachers who are unable or unwilling to sacrifice the freedom of science in favor of the political mainstream and adjust their research and training courses to externally imposed values are labeled as “controversial” or “ideologically obstinate” and themselves become the objects of both internal university investigations and media campaigns aimed at depriving their activities of scientific status.