Student encampments raise the question: what are universities for?

JVL Introduction

Prof Patrizia Nanz, president of the European University Institute, stands out among university heads around the world for enthusiastically supporting her students’ right to protest.

Others, overwhelmingly, have used the demands for a “safe space” to justify the repression of students’ Gaza protests and to curtail their freedom of speech.

Nanz sees these protests as an opportunity to take stock and affirm the fundamental principles as to what universities are for: spaces where one can be, and should be, safely challenged, rather than confirmed in one’s convictions.

Universities, she insists, should be open and transparent about their “political economy” – who funds them, what they invest in, the networks of power and influence that they are part of.

It’s time that others followed suit.

RK

This article was originally published by the Guardian on Mon 27 May 2024. Read the original here.