After allegations against a lecturer at the Humboldt University in Berlin, the Executive Committee reacted and released her from her teaching duties.
The decision was a reaction to the fact that the teacher “published tweets that were publicly perceived as anti-Semitic positions,” the university said on Friday.
At the beginning of the week, the “Tagesspiegel” reported on the case, which it said contained screenshots of the woman’s Twitter posts from previous years. Most of the tweets in question have since been deleted and the lecturer’s account has been made private, the report said. However, students would have saved posts beforehand.
The university then said in a tweet: “We take the reactions and comments on the Tagesspiegel article on the allegations of anti-Semitism against a lecturer at the HU very seriously and understand the concerns and questions.”
When asked by the “Tagesspiegel” the lecturer regretted having published a certain photo, according to the newspaper. The scientist explained that she deleted the photo because it was not her intention to associate herself with the content of a poster that was shown.
According to the university, the institute council had already dealt with the allegations at the end of 2021, but came to the conclusion that there was no misconduct in the context of teaching.
“Of course, all employees of Humboldt-Universität have the opportunity to get involved in social media. They are responsible for their private or professional statements,” said the university. After the examination, the presidency came to the conclusion “that in this case private and official statements cannot be evaluated separately” and condemned the lecturer’s statements on Twitter. “We take the criticism and fears of the students very seriously,” emphasized Peter Frensch, acting university president.
