As a “young left-wing student”, Susanne Schröter had to deal with conservative professors.

The gentlemen may not have liked their views, but they encouraged the prospective ethnologist anyway.

In the meantime, the political stance of a young researcher plays a greater role in their career - and that's not a good thing, says Schröter, who teaches at Goethe University.

Udo Schuklenk sees it similarly.

He had his own experiences with “political correctness” back in the 1980s.

As a philosophy student, he experienced how the philosopher Peter Singer, who was controversial because of his theses on the disabled, was "roared down" at German universities.

The fact that the universities did not take action against such encroachments on freedom of speech made him emigrate, says Schüklenk.

Sasha Zoske

Sheet maker in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The two scientists can tell a lot about the excesses of a "cancel culture" that wants to ban politically or morally unacceptable positions from the universities.

They did it on Tuesday evening in an online event to which the Universitas and Ratio professor groups active at Goethe University had invited.

Schröter herself is defamed as a racist by some on the left because she is critical of the Muslim headscarf and examines the connections between integration and cultural imprints.

Schüklenk's enemies tend to be found on the far right of society: Evangelical Christians insult him as a "Nazi" because of his bioethical theses.

"Honor killings" a "wrong topic"?

The two professors agree that they can withstand such attacks thanks to their secure academic position.

It is much more dangerous for young researchers if certain theses and topics are declared taboo and their proponents are massively attacked.

In Schuklenk's view, this often results in self-censorship.

He received e-mails from young scientists who asked him, with a view to presumably sensitive research topics: "Can this still be published?"

Schröter reports on doctoral students whose dissertations were not accepted because they had dealt with the "wrong" topics - for example "honor killings".

She also knows of students who were unable to realize projects they had chosen for their bachelor's or master's thesis: the supervisors said the projects were too "hot".

For her, Schröter's, own subject applies: "If an ethnologist works on Islamism, his career is over."

“Resentment” against gender research

Schröter and Schüklenk see such tendencies as a threat to academic freedom, regardless of which political direction they come from.

Andrea Geier does not believe that the danger is really that great.

As a representative of gender studies, the Germanist from the University of Trier warns against "alarmism" in the discussion.

She doubts that there are "fixed taboo fields" in which research is not allowed.

She complains about "resentment against certain theories" such as gender research, to the mere mention of which some colleagues have already reacted with an anguished "Oh God".

Geier asserts that she neither advocates "trigger warnings" against objectionable content in seminars nor wants to specify language rules for certain topics.

But one has to accept that students question traditional reading canons and react sensitively to certain terms.

There must be "rooms for negotiation" at the universities in which teachers and students can clarify with each other how they want to deal with explosive topics.

Events dealing with particularly sensitive subjects should also not be part of the compulsory programme.

Schüklenk agrees with the Trier professor to the extent that many reports about the "cancellation" are anecdotal.

From his point of view, empirical research on this would be desirable, but would be difficult to realise.

Right at the beginning of the conversation, his colleague Schröter took on the task of putting the discussion in the right context to the current situation: In countries like Russia and the Ukraine, academic freedom is endangered to a very different extent than in Germany.