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Entrance to the Humboldt University in Berlin
Photo: Wolfgang Kumm / picture alliance / dpa
Can a federal state oblige its universities to offer long-term job prospects to young academics?
The Berlin Humboldt University (HU) defends itself with a constitutional complaint against the new Berlin higher education law.
The HU announced that the brief was submitted to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe on Thursday.
This should clarify by the highest court whether the state of Berlin has exceeded its competencies with the higher education law, which has been in force since the end of September, said a university spokesman.
The complaint is directed against a single paragraph of the law, § 110.
This means that the universities must conclude a follow-up agreement for permanent employment with post-doctoral young researchers in budget-financed qualification positions.
The passage was a political reaction to the # IchBinHanna movement, which had denounced the poor working conditions for young academics for months.
"With the regulation, the state of Berlin is taking a special path in terms of labor law and university policy," the HU has now declared.
However, Berlin does not have the legislative competence for this.
Uni insists on job rotation
The university relies on an expert opinion by its constitutional lawyer Matthias Ruffert, according to which the federal government alone can decide on the working conditions of postdocs with the Science Time Contract Act.
The university can only fulfill its task of promoting young talent "if the limited positions become available again after a certain period of time."
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The constitutional complaint was submitted by HU President Sabine Kunst, so to speak, as the end of her resistance to the new Berlin University Act (BerlHG). At the end of October, Kunst had already announced her resignation as head of the university at the end of the year and justified this with the new law. "Personally, I consider the BerlHG's scientific policy to be well-intentioned, but badly done," Kunst had said at the time, "the changes in their entirety endanger the excellent further development of the Humboldt University and, as a result, Berlin as a location for science."
"It is the right of the Humboldt University to have parts of the Berlin Higher Education Act examined by the highest court," said Senator for Science Ulrike Gote (Greens) on Thursday in response to a request from SPIEGEL.
The Senate will now wait for the decision of the Constitutional Court and then implement it.
"Regardless of the outcome of the constitutional complaint, it is clear that we will not leave the universities alone with the implementation of the law to strengthen Berlin science." Therefore, there will soon be discussions with those involved from the universities to adapt the law.
The constitutional complaint caused a shake of the head among young scientists.
The announcement of the HU received almost exclusively negative comments on Twitter.
Several postdocs accused the university of acting in bad taste and of having lost touch with the realities of life and work for the next generation of academics.