We are extremely irritated by the events surrounding TU President Rauch.
With horror we have followed what has been possible on German university campuses in recent weeks. Occupations by supposedly pro-Palestinian students, but also by external persons, were tolerated in many cases. In the process, antisemitic messages could in part be chanted or displayed unimpeded. Criminal damage could not always be prevented.
The Technische Universität zu Berlin (TU) did not cover itself in glory here either.
First, without consulting Jewish students or teaching staff, the highly controversial antisemitism researcher Prof. Uffa Jensen was appointed as the TU’s antisemitism commissioner. He attracted attention above all by not recognising as such, per se, Israel-related antisemitism, which since 7 October has demonstrably been the most frequent form in which antisemitism appears, and by not wishing to use the working definition of antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance adopted by the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz. This positioning, and the rejection of the researcher by the majority of Jewish students, disqualifies Prof. Uffa Jensen for the office of antisemitism commissioner. Nevertheless, TU President Geraldine Rauch stood behind her choice and herself attracted attention by having liked clearly antisemitic tweets via her X profile. After these events became known, Rauch first set her X profile to private and subsequently deleted it. This presumably happened in the knowledge that further incriminating material and likes would become visible in her profile. Like the Zentralrat der Juden, we consider the apology written by Prof. Rauch to be hardly credible. The members of the Academic Senate voted by a majority for President Rauch’s resignation. We can only meet with the greatest incomprehension the fact that Rauch, despite this sobering result for her, takes the two-thirds majority that was not reached as an occasion to remain in office.
The Federal Chancellor has consequently excluded Geraldine Rauch from his advisory circle, which advises the federal government on questions of key technologies, digitalisation, AI and other topics of the future, following the serious accusations recently raised against her.
Geraldine Rauch must now also resign as TU President! For as long as she remains in office, Jewish students at the TU can no longer be certain that their protection is guaranteed, that they can study free from discrimination and that their problems are taken seriously by this university leadership.
