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Ina Czyborra (SPD), Berlin Senator for Science, Health and Care, speaks during a press conference after the Berlin “Security Summit” in the Red Town Hall.
© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa
An attack on a Jewish student in Berlin by a fellow student caused horror in February.
Now the Senate is seeing consequences - at a record-breaking pace.
Berlin - Berlin universities will be able to exmatriculate students after serious crimes in the future, i.e. permanently ban them from the institution.
The black-red Senate decided on a corresponding change to the higher education law on Tuesday at a meeting in Neukölln.
The project is a consequence of an attack by a fellow student on a Jewish student at the Free University almost two months ago.
It will now be discussed further in the House of Representatives and is expected to be passed there before the summer break.
The possibility of exmatriculation was only abolished by the red-green-red coalition in 2021.
Since then, according to previous information, Berlin has been the only federal state without such strict sanctions - the university law currently in force provides for a maximum of a three-month stay-at-home ban.
According to Science Senator Ina Czyborra (SPD), the core point of the amendment is the reintroduction of regulatory law at universities.
Graded regulatory measures are planned, depending on the type and severity of the disruption.
These include a reprimand, the threat of exmatriculation and a ban on using certain university facilities, including its digital infrastructure.
Other possible measures mentioned include exclusion from individual courses for up to one semester and ultimately exmatriculation.
The aim is to ensure that university and study operations are free of violence and fear, said Czyborra.
In addition, members and affiliates of the universities must be protected from attacks and discrimination.
“We want universities to be safe and non-discriminatory places,” said Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU).
“The change to the Higher Education Act offers the best conditions for this.”
According to the senator, exmatriculation should only apply in the event of acts of violence - after the person concerned has been convicted by a court.
However, there should be an exception: If the suspect commits further violence after a first serious crime for which he is being investigated and is threatened with exmatriculation, according to the draft law he can be permanently banned from the university even before a verdict is made.
Czyborra emphasized that the proposed law is not about restricting political expression or other freedoms.
It's more about protecting freedom of expression and spaces for discourse.
Nevertheless, demonstrators warned against “politically motivated exmatriculations” in front of the Red City Hall, where the Senate normally meets.
The Left rejects the new higher education law.
“The Senate is going far beyond the target and sticking to activism,” explained the science policy spokesman for the Left parliamentary group, Tobias Schulze.
The goal of protecting victims of violence is not achieved: “A possible exmatriculation would only take place many months or even years after the crime.” The Greens also doubted whether the law offers effective and legally secure protection against violence or anti-Semitism.
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The trigger for the amendment to the law was a suspected anti-Semitic act of violence at the beginning of February: The Jewish FU student Lahav Shapira was hospitalized with broken bones in his face.
A pro-Palestinian fellow student is said to have hit and kicked him on a street in Berlin-Mitte.
The public prosecutor's office assumes a targeted attack and an anti-Semitic background.
The case put the management of the FU and Czyborra under great pressure at the time.
The senator was confronted with calls for her resignation from the Central Council of Jews.
Above all, he criticized the fact that she initially saw no reason to change the Berlin Higher Education Act.
The FU initially banned the alleged attacker from entering the building for three months.
The amendment cannot apply to him because laws do not apply retroactively.
dpa