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The members of the Conference of Science Ministers and the Conference of Culture Ministers of Germany;
The members of the Science Committee and the Culture Committee of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Parliament;
The leaders of the democratic parties in the North Rhine-Westphalia State Parliament: Thorsten Schick, CDU; Wibke Brems and Mehrdad Mostofizadeh, Alliance 90/The Greens; Jochen Ott, SPD; Henning Höne, FDP
We, the undersigned institutional leaders, academics, artists, architects, and citizens, observe with growing concern increasing interference in academic and artistic freedom as well as in university autonomy. In recent months, there have been repeated political interventions and public campaigns aimed at influencing the programs and decisions of cultural and academic institutions in Germany. This dynamic has recently become particularly visible in the debates surrounding the management of the Berlinale Film Festival and the involvement of the German domestic intelligence service in the German Bookstore Prize.
A particularly striking recent example is the controversy surrounding an event at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in January 2026. Students invited the internationally renowned Palestinian artist Basma al-Sharif to give a lecture on her work. A media campaign accused al-Sharif of antisemitism, citing posts on social media, and demanded that the event be canceled. After legal review, it was determined that the artist’s posts were legal and protected freedom of expression. The attempt to force the cancellation of the event was aimed at narrowing the corridor of opinion and preventing controversial debates in art and politics.
Due to threats on social media, the lecture took place with access for university members only, focusing on the artistic work of the invited artist. Following this, the institution itself came under considerable political pressure: representatives of state politics complained that they were unable to legally intervene in the university's autonomy and referred to new possibilities to do so opened up by a planned amendment of the state’s higher education law.
In the Science Committee of the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament, artistic and scientific freedom were repeatedly referred to as a „guise“ – illiberal rhetoric. At the same time, there are calls for the resignation of Rector Donatella Fioretti, most recently in a petition whose first signatory is the mayor of Düsseldorf. On March 18, Fioretti is to appear before a special session of the Committee for Culture and Media of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Parliament on the issue.
The matter is particularly problematic because the political pressure is not due to unlawful conduct on the part of the academy’s management, instead it targets a decision within the constitutionally protected autonomy of higher education. This marks a new level of political intervention. Article 5 of the German Basic Law guarantees freedom of art, science, and teaching. This explicitly protects controversial or inconvenient positions as well. Respecting this freedom does not mean agreeing with all positions expressed. It means enabling critical engagement with them. Article 5 is, particularly in light of the experiences of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era, an important cornerstone of our democracy: it protects freedom of expression, art and science against illiberal political tendencies, i.e., those that weaken civil liberties. These civil liberties are placed under general suspicion and thus weakened by the rhetoric of suspicion repeatedly used in the state parliament by referring to them as a “guise for anti-Semitism”[1].
We therefore expressly support the decision of the Düsseldorf Art Academy not to cancel the lecture by Basma al-Sharif organized by students, the stance taken by Rector Donatella Fioretti in defense of university autonomy and her duty of care towards her students, and the right of students and teachers to freely discuss scientific, artistic, and social issues. At the same time, we firmly reject the practice of delegitimizing political expressions of opinion through blanket accusations of antisemitism or excluding artists from academic and artistic discourse on the basis of their political positions.
We call on the political executive and legislative branches to respect the autonomy of universities and cultural institutions and to protect the freedom of art and science in accordance with Article 5 of the Basic Law. Political interventions, threats, or interference in funding and management must not be used as leverage against academic and cultural institutions. Such practices are characteristic of authoritarian regimes and are unworthy of a democracy.
Universities must offer students protected spaces, and democratic societies thrive on the open negotiation of conflicts. The freedom of art and science is decided in concrete situations. When intimidation determines which debates are possible and which are not, the basis of democracy crumbles. We therefore stand behind the decision of the Düsseldorf Art Academy and the position of its rector, Donatella Fioretti. We are at your disposal to engage in discussions about the role of universities and cultural institutions in an open democratic society.
[1] The phrase “under the guise of artistic freedom” is a term introduced into debate by the AfD, most recently in the context of the Berlinale discussion. The fact that this illiberal metaphor is now increasingly being taken up and repeated by other parties in the state parliament and the Bundestag is evident, in the debate on the incident at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in the Science Committee, when the chairing AfD spokesperson emphasizes how important the term “guise” is to him, which other committee members had previously used. See the meeting of the Science Committee in the state parliament: https://www.landtag.nrw.de/home/mediathek/video.html?kid=5798f8dc-02dd-466d-b469-b2f67e9ca1ac (from hour:minute 1:52), as well as the AfD's recent statements in the Bundestag regarding the Berlinale: https://afdbundestag.de/weimer-hat-seinen-laden-nicht-im-griff/
Kind regards,
First signatories:
Facing the Authoritarian
Drift: Art Schools
as Sites of Critique
Facing the Authoritarian
Drift: Art Schools
as Sites of Critique