How does the most “critical” fringe of French universities justify its desire to boycott Israeli higher education institutions? Our resident watchdog, Karl Kraus, has looked into the report commissioned by a number of lecturers and students at Sciences Po Strasbourg to assert the need to break off all partnerships with Reichmann University. All he discovered was the frustration of searching for guilt without finding it, and the perfidy of maintaining the initial bias despite everything.
Rumor has it that a report was drawn up and submitted, evaluating the scientific value of the partnership between Science Po Strasbourg and Reichmann University in Herzliya, Israel, according to strict academic criteria. For my part, I do not believe this rumor. If such a report existed, it would seem perplexing why it would not be shared with the wider community. Yet, the only document in circulation, which is indeed entitled “Report of the Lauder School of Government (Reichmann University) Partnership Committee”, written by five teacher-researchers and five student representatives from Sciences Po Strasbourg, is thirty-one pages long, of which only four establish the “decision-making criteria” which, as unanimously desired by the members of the said committee, must lead the Board of Directors of Science Po Strasbourg to not renew the partnership with Reichmann. Four pages out of thirty-one is modest. Perhaps sufficient, however, provided that the famous methodological excellence that is supposed to govern all university decisions is discovered therein. After all, they are the work of five eminent researchers who have an intimate professional knowledge of the “criteria of academic quality and teaching” on which, as the Minister Delegate for Higher Education and Research has pointed out, the decision to form or dissolve a university partnership must be based. Under no circumstances, the minister reminds us, can such a decision be politically motivated. And we understand why: what would we do with all our fine partnerships with China or Qatar if politics got involved in this kind of decision-making? Shouldn’t the Sorbonne immediately dismantle its profitable branch in Abu Dhabi? Pure scientific quality must therefore be the guiding principle in the evaluation of a partnership.
So what do we learn from the three pages explaining the decision-making criteria of the approach?
Firstly, we are told that the working relationship between the two institutions has significantly deteriorated to the point where there is no point in continuing the partnership. The blame for this deterioration is said to lie entirely with the president of Reichmann University, who, in a letter addressed to the management of Sciences Po Strasbourg following an initial attempt to end this partnership, recalled the particular historical responsibility of this sole formerly Nazi university on French territory (Strasbourg and its university were incorporated into the Reich in 1940). In the eyes of the committee, to recall this constitutes a “particularly militant approach” which “is part of a broader communication strategy by Reichmann University regarding academic criticism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a more general way and goes beyond the framework of the strict academic relationship”. By “academic criticism”, the rapporteurs fail to specify that they mean strong statements such as “Reichmann complicit in genocide” among other dialectical refinements, which form the basso continuo of calls for a disengagement. The Israelis, in a strange misunderstanding, see this as offensive language. It is not certain that they have grasped the heights of French-style academic debate.
But since a report is supposed to demonstrate, argue and analyze, here is the perfect opportunity to substantiate such a serious accusation: that of active complicity in genocide. For this kind of evidence would be perfectly admissible in a court that judges a university institution exclusively according to academic criteria. Indeed, according to our Western academic standards, courses entitled “How to kill a maximum number of Palestinians with a single bomb”, “Building efficient concentration camps”, “Theory of race and subhuman status of the Gazans”, “Final solution to the Palestinian question” or others would constitute a reason to judge that what is done at Reichmann is not science, but racist ideology with genocidal intent. However, we are disappointed to learn in the section of the report devoted to “teaching content” that no course at Reichmann bears this kind of title.
The courses that make our examiners doubt the relevance of a partnership are “teachings on counter-terrorism, communication in relation to terrorism, Israeli-Arab conflicts and the law of armed conflict”. In short, nothing that justifies doubting that Reichmann is a university.
We then learn that international law is not taught there as it is in our universities. Which, in itself, is proof that it is taught there – a significant advantage over some of France’s other international partners. We also learn that the UN is criticized in some curricula. It turns out, in a note, that it is in fact UNWRA, the organization whose school textbooks teach mathematics by counting the number of martyrs needed to kill a certain number of Jews…. Everyone’s got their own teaching style, right?
That’s about all the committee can say about the content of the courses taught at this university, which is complicit in genocide.
The well-informed reader concludes that Reichmann’s genocidaires are well and truly hiding their game behind apparently innocent course titles and syllabuses, but that as soon as our examiners look into the research carried out at this university, its nefarious activities will be exposed.However, nothing is said about the research produced at Reichmann. This is a shame, because according to the ranking cited to demonstrate Strasbourg’s superiority (in terms of teaching), Reichmann is a high-level research university. One might therefore have expected revelations: secret research contracts, direct cooperation with the army to develop weapons of mass destruction, suspicious biological work. But nada, nothing, nichts, כלום. One must believe that consulting research work requires efforts that are not very compatible with the ways of “academic criticism”.
For the committee, plurality is measured exclusively by the degree of political opposition, not freedom of speech, that is its understanding of academic freedom…
Fortunately, we still have the criterion of academic freedom. If it can be demonstrated that it does not exist at Reichmann, then we will have a good argument for ending this partnership (and in the process, all partnerships with universities in authoritarian countries, and soon with American universities that bow to Trump’s wishes). So what about this academic freedom? Are there circulars, as is currently the case in the United States, prescribing what can and cannot be said? No, neither the government nor Reichmann’s presidency are hindering freedom of research and education. However, our evaluators note, “with our partner (…) the committee was unable to identify any significant critical expression on the way in which the war is being waged”. But the committee itself must concede that “the convergence of opinions presented by the university management and that of a number of speakers cannot, on its own, establish the existence of an infringement of academic freedom, since the positions adopted can be uniform while being perfectly free”. Logically, if it cannot “on its own” establish the existence of an infringement of academic freedom, there must be other incriminating elements to support the request to end this partnership. However, no other evidence is provided, and the only complaint is that the criticisms made of Reichmann do not relate “to the government’s conduct of operations, but to its ability to achieve the objectives it had set itself, with a positioning that is more mobilizing than critical”. In short, academic freedom is guaranteed to Reichmann and yet its members do not consider the war in Gaza to be genocidal. Where is this heading? Which academics are mobilizing for their country in accordance with the objectives pursued by their government? Wherever it is heading, it has nothing to do with the scientific quality of the work of this university. In any case, our courageous rapporteurs do not dare to address this subject and look into this strange situation where citizens, even the most inclined to criticize, approve of the policy pursued by their State, which would require either looking into Israel or having an idea, however small, of what a university is. But for the committee, plurality is measured exclusively by the degree of political opposition, not freedom of speech; that is its understanding of academic freedom…
Finally, a last decision-making criterion is given: “the assessment of the students sent”. And this is normal, because even if the students are not the best placed to evaluate the scientific quality of a research institution, their opinion counts. For example, if the Strasbourg students who are sent to Reichmann on exchange were harassed, humiliated or threatened in the same way as Jewish students on Sciences Po campuses in France actually are, this would be a strong argument for ending the partnership. But once again, nothing of the sort has happened. Like the pot calling the kettle black, or rather the Paris stock exchange lecturing Wall Street, our Sciences Po committee mentions the very high tuition fees at Reichmann, which mean that French students are surrounded by ‘privileged’ people. In the same vein of absurdity, the committee notes the presence of many ‘outside’ speakers in the courses, whereas in French Sciences Po, outside speakers would never be allowed in the lecture halls to enable their students – who hate privilege but pay dearly for it – to build up a network of influential people as early as possible in their careers.
These are the decision-making criteria for the committee’s firm recommendation to “end relations with the Lauder School of Government by ceasing student exchanges with this institution for the academic years 2025-2026 and beyond, and not to take any steps to renew the partnership”.
The board of directors of Sciences Po Strasbourg did not follow this recommendation. We must not therefore despair completely of our research institutions, as it seems that there are still people who can read. The students mobilized for the cause immediately staged a new blockade at Science Po Strasbourg, and their fellow students in Paris interrupted a conference bringing together representatives of Science Po Paris and its international partners, accusing them all of complicity with genocide. For ‘academic criticism’ will not be silenced by logic or facts. It believes in its truths, whatever the cost. It is true that the French university system grew out of the old Sorbonne, the most noble school of Catholic theology for centuries. As secular as it may have become, it would seem that its ‘critical’ side is still true to its faith.
