Thursday the 14^th of November was the first protest against budget cuts in education, and it was endorsed by our Executive Board (EB). A clear sign that the TU/e has a stance on the plans made by the current political parties in power. However, back in May, on the 13^th, the EB gave a statement where they told the TU/e community that the university is not a political institution and they would not take a stance on the alleged genocide in Gaza.

What does that mean? Surely the EB isn’t lying, a political institution is an organization that creates, enforces and applies law, the TU/e doesn’t do that! But the TU/e is a semi-democratic organization, with our council system and I would dare to suggest that the TU/e still is an extension of our political institutions, which means that the TU/e cannot be neutral. I think the TU/e needs to take a stance in societal matters, else we will end up spectating the disasters that will take place in our society which we have the power to prevent.

The alleged genocide in Gaza is horrible. It’s confusing, heartbreaking and leads to so many negative emotions. Everyone wants it to stop, but unfortunately, we don’t have any democratic power over the Israel Defense Force (IDF). However, we do have our democratic influence over our own university. And when protesters asked for the bare minimum, like stopping collaboration with complicit universities in Israel, the EB reacted with: “TU/e is not a political institution”.

The TU/e is funded largely by public money. Our university gets to decide what to spend that money on. The public trusts us to decide what will be best for our society. The tax money of hard working families should be spent wisely and with respect to the people who worked for that money. We have committees to make sure we do! But when the current political parties decided that we get too much money, did our EB just acquiesce and start deciding what to cut? No, they started fighting for the good we do with that money. Time off was given to protest, the EB would be in Utrecht and showed they are against the budget cuts. Clearly a political stance, one which I agree with, because I also believe in the good we do at this university. But definitely not a stance in line with their earlier statement.

We all at this university need to realize that unfortunately, everything is politics. The power we use, the water we drink, the money that funds our research, it’s all regulated and an expression of the democratic process of our country. We need to start standing for our values. If political parties start preaching that universities are only “doing activism”, we must use our right to free speech to stand up for our work. These kinds of attacks on freedom of speech are the first step of limiting academic freedom and integrity.  And when we work together with institutions that are implicit in alleged genocide, we need to listen to students using their freedom of speech, stand on our values, and try and do our part in stopping a humanitarian disaster.

Lucas van Bentum is a master student in Electrical Energy Systems at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.