If representatives of the leftist Austrian Students’ Union (“ÖH”) at the University of Vienna have their way, a lecture series on the Corona pandemic should be stopped immediately. The reason: the lecturers were allegedly playing down the virus and the other students did not dare to contradict them.
eXXpress readers know the background: In this lecture series, the University of Vienna is currently looking at the pandemic from different angles and has invited critics of measures and vaccination sceptics to give lectures for this purpose. This has triggered protests from students and a debate about the freedom of teaching. On Wednesday, the left-wing student body finally demanded in an open letter that the lecture, in which doctors also participate, be cancelled immediately.Already in the first lecture, social Darwinist views were expressed, criticised the Austrian Student Union (ÖH) on Wednesday, according to which it was emphasised during the lecture that mainly old people and the previously ill were affected by Corona, “almost as if their death was less bad”, the students interpreted the statements. “However, the freedom of science must not be an argument for inhuman world views,” the open letter says. There is no discourse at eye level here, the ÖH criticises, among other things because one cannot expect the same discourse ability from students as from academic teaching staff. “Therefore, not every person dares to disagree in the public setting of a lecture series.” The lecture series would therefore provide a platform for inhuman attitudes and should therefore be cancelled.The organisers themselves have said little about the accusations in advance. “For me, such people are people who deny science,” Prof. Christian Schubert, a doctor and psychologist, said in an interview with eXXpress, expressing his indignation that his participation was causing protests. The participation of two other experts – namely Andreas Sönnichsen, head of department at the Medical University of Vienna and Martin Sprenger, prominent public health expert – has also created a stir. For Schubert, the protest is further evidence of the decline of freedom of expression and freedom of research.
The organiser of the lecture series, historian Prof. Andrea Komlosy, emphasised to eXXpress that the purpose of the event was to enable different perspectives on the Corona pandemic: “It is not every day that the University of Vienna, the Vienna University of Technology and BOKU Vienna cooperate in a lecture and, with the help of lecturers from different disciplines, open up a broader spectrum of related questions from a narrow view of the Corona problem.
https://exxpress.at/linke-studenten-wollen-corona-vorlesung-an-wiener-uni-stoppen/