Rector Professor Eva Inés Obergfell said: “We are currently facing a highly charged social atmosphere where organisers are being harshly attacked and in some cases threatened before or during an event.” She added that in this case, alongside content-related considerations, this led the organisers at the Faculty of Theology to cancel the event, which was part of a series of lectures on the traditions and current state of anti-Semitism, out of concern for the safety of guests. “The University management had no part in this decision. But it goes without saying that the freedom enjoyed by researchers and lecturers also extends to the right to make such decisions.” There will be an internal review of how the decision was made and what alternatives may have been available.
The Rectorate points out that threatening innocent bystanders is not an acceptable form of free and democratic debate. “Leipzig University will continue to take a firm stand against such tendencies. We want to and will keep spaces open for academic discourse. Science depends on this.”
One of the organisers of the lecture series, Professor Gert Pickel, said today: “Cancelling an event because of ‘security concerns’ is not good, it does not do justice to the idea of the university as a space for discourse. Having said that, we were genuinely concerned last week that Jewish members of the University community might be subjected to traumatising experiences. We felt we had no other option, but we should have looked more closely at potential sources of support.”