“ETH Zurich is not a platform for political activism”

Yesterday, ETH Zurich had a demonstration of around one hundred pro-Palestinian activists in the main building broken up by police. What made you resort to this resolute intervention?
Ulrich Weidmann: ETH Zurich sees itself as a place where different opinions and perspectives can and should be able to be expressed openly. However, a constructive dialogue requires mutually accepted rules. And that applies to everyone. Unauthorised actions like those of yesterday violate our rules and do not constitute a fruitful framework for dialogue. We therefore repeatedly asked the protesters to leave the ETH Zurich building. As they failed to comply with this request, we asked the police to disperse the protestors.

Other universities have tolerated similar protests. Why not ETH Zurich?
ETH Zurich does not offer a platform for political activism; political neutrality is important to us. All our ETH members should feel welcome and safe on campus. But, protests like that of yesterday are perceived as threatening by many ETH members. At the end of the day, it is our job to ensure the smooth conduct of our teaching and research activities without disruption.

The protesters argued that they had taken this action after being denied any dialogue with the ETH Executive Board. What were the grounds for this refusal?
The Executive Board is very open to dialogue and since last autumn has been in contact with many ETH members who are directly or indirectly affected by the situation in Palestine and Israel. Nevertheless, we will not allow the conditions for dialogue to be imposed on us, as would have been the case yesterday. We will always be open to constructive dialogue with rules that are acceptable to all sides.

The protesters made three demands on ETH Zurich: ¡°to adopt a stance against genocide, an academic boycott of Israel and full transparency in terms of its co-operation with Israeli institutions.¡± What is the position of the Executive Board?
I would like to make a few general points. Of course, we are not indifferent to the suffering of the people in Gaza. However, it is not the role of a university to take political positions. We want academic life on our campus to be peaceful and respectful for all our ETH members from over 120 nations. We already clearly expressed our sympathy for all those affected by the conflict between Palestine and Israel in a statement over six months ago.
The call for an academic boycott would be diametrically opposed to our principle of freedom of research. And with regard to transparency: ETH Zurich is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. We therefore cannot and do not want to make a secret of our co-operation with our partners.

Footage and images of the police evacuation have been made public. Doesn¡¯t that bother you?
It goes without saying that I would rather not have to see images like these taken in ETH buildings. I very much hope that we will continue to maintain a peaceful dialogue with each other in these difficult times, empathise with the ETH members affected and support each other.