Checkbooks and academic freedom

Politicians opening their checkbooks, adding billions to higher education budget, while supporting movement that threatens academic freedom

Yoel Esteron|Published: 08.24.10 , 11:37

1. When fools meet flickering lights

Stupidity may be found anywhere human beings live. The fact that some people are professors does not preclude universities from this generalization. There are a number of fools and scorpions in Israeli academia, revealing their traits when they make offensive suggestions for an international boycott on the academia that provides their livelihood.

Fools and scorpions.

Their number is small and their influence is negligible, but they let various marginal, flickering organizations, with pretentious names like Im Tirtzu, to attack the Israeli academia with claims of deficient Zionism. Oblivious to the irony, they threaten to demand that those who donate to the university boycott these institutes of higher education until they dismiss the professors calling for an academic boycott. Fine, even the flickerers have the right to express themselves and they are somewhat beneficial – they make us think about the minority and about the margins.

The initial response by university heads to threats by Im Tirtzu and the Institute for Zionist Strategies was flustered. Professor Rivka Carmi, president of Ben-Gurion University in the Negev, resolutely stopped the incursion onto the campus, but Professor Yossi Klafter, president of Tel Aviv University, was frightened and tempted into demanding syllabi from his lecturers. In his defense, he changed his mind and withdrew the demand. Academic staff organizations published a harsh public statement and then went back to nap.

If any philanthropists try to condition their donation on ridding a university of a lecturer, or an opinion, they will prove that the community of donors is also characterized by the expected human distribution of knowledge. University heads will have to give up the donation and recruit another donor. Hard to recruit donations? Correct. No one said that university administration would be easy. If there's no choice – fly out, yet again, to the senior citizens in Miami. Avishay Braverman still has some addresses in his old notebook.

2. Real money? Finance minister has to prove it

The wild attack by these ephemeral organizations came in a week in which the education and finance ministers announced reforms in higher education. Their press conference was celebratory, to the same extent that the previous press conference declaring a reform in higher education was. But why the skepticism? They promised another NIS 7.5 billion (about $1.96 billion) in six years, in exchange for new emphases on quality and excellence in research and teaching, as well as administrative transparency. Great. Well done.

It may be too little, and it is definitely too late – at the end of a “lost decade” - but the reform tries to contend seriously with the major problems in Israeli academia: The erosion of research quality, teaching and laboratories, the aging staff and the brain drain. Therefore, even if the chairman of the Planning and Budgeting Committee, Professor Manuel Trachtenberg, copied ideas and recommendations from the report published by a previous committee headed by Avraham (Beige) Shochat, which reviewed the state of higher education, we won't complain. Reforms of this kind are tested in their implementation, not on paper. Shochat's report remained on paper.

Trachtenberg, unlike Shochat, may see real money flow from the Treasury, which generally refuses to grant funds, to the perforated university budgets. This time Trachtenberg has the Treasury's support, but the Finance Ministry youths may turn out, once again, to be stronger than the Finance Minister. The proof in the coming years must be provided by Dr. Yuval Steinitz or whoever replaces him in the coming elections. In six years we generally witness two and a half governments. We'll see.

3. Politician won battle over philosopher's heart

With all due respect to the enthusiastic declarations made by the education minister and to the Treasury's checkbook, university heads should not be popping the champagne bottle corks. Gideon Sa'ar was the keynote speaker at the Im Tirtzu conference in March. He came to support their praiseworthy activities on campuses. "Well done," the minister commended them. His stuttering over the course of the past week strengthened the notion that he doesn't understand the magnitude of his responsibility.

Sadly, the finance minister also revealed his deepest emotions. The minister, a philosopher from the world of academia, called earlier this week to, "Dismiss the lecturers who demand a boycott of Israel, as well as those who, in their lectures, denounce Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." When journalist Sever Plocker dared ask about academic freedom, Dr. Steinitz replied, "Would Strauss directors employ food engineers calling for a boycott of Strauss products?"

Logical? Justified? Only for those who don't understand the difference between work regulations in commercial companies and the ethos of academic freedom, the essence of which is to encourage free thought and creativity, even at the price of tolerance that irritates the aforementioned fools and scorpions. It's unfortunate that the politician won in the battle over the philosopher's soul. We could have expected more from Steinitz than we get from MK Tzipi Hotovely, who explained that, “The academia has become anti-Israel.” Hotovely truly is a walking nuance. But Steinitz?

4. Ben-Gurion and Netanyahu

Money isn't enough to ensure the future of Israeli academia. Doing so requires a deep, broad understanding of academic freedom. The Zionist state that became a cynical state needs a vision. And a vision requires a leader of David Ben Gurion's stature. In 1949, when the state was fragile and very poor, the prime minister said that the country's economic and social actions would go unrecognized if scientific conquests weren't applied. Ben-Gurion allowed no one to oppose the professors. On the contrary, he made scientists the nation's darlings. In those days, they believed in brains, not in amulets and whispers. Those were the days.

But where is Ben-Gurion and where is Benjamin Netanyahu? When the marginal right – who give a bad name to the right espoused by Menachem Begin, a true democrat – attacks the universities, the prime minister maintains his right to silence. He doesn't issue a profound statement, doesn't convene journalists, doesn't head straight to the television studios. He and his cowardly ministers must make the petty political calculations – why lose votes for a few annoying professors? Thus, their silence transforms the marginal attack on academic freedom into a genuine threat.

5. Our silence is deafening

Our silence is deafening. This isn't an academic debate on academic freedom. We must grant scientists and researchers and lecturers a special status, above others, as befitting the people who ensure the future of medicine and culture, industry and humanities, agriculture and law. We must decry any attempt to infringe on academic freedom, which is a necessary condition for research and science.

Another shekel needn't be added to the promised reform for this vision. We need leaders with a vision who don't fear the insignificant mob. And if the leaders hide in their offices – we must speak out in a loud, clear voice. Benjamin Netanyahu's father, an important researcher, may understand these lines.