Would some call this “woke” science? I wondered while listening to an international speaker lecture at the UvA last week. In his lecture he asked whether refugees should be selected for admission based on their cultural affinity, level of education, geographic proximity and the like. He said that since 2011 the number of refugees in the world has doubled, but that the number of resettlement from refugee camps is currently historically low. For example, the UN selected 1.4 million refugees who urgently need resettlement, taking into account, for example, their poor health, physical danger or because they are children. Of them, only two percent were eventually resettled. Given the scarcity of resettlement, the guest speaker wondered what justifiable reasons exist for choosing certain refugees over others. His final conclusion was that many criteria are problematic. For example, ideas of cultural affinity are closely related to colonial classifications of world population.

During the question and answer session, my thoughts drifted towards the external investigation that the UvA recently started on, in short, the possible threats to academic freedom caused by the “awakening” in its ranks. Some teachers have already contributed to this. probation. For example, an associate professor of media studies stated, “If we can’t say it all at the university, we can close the tent.” However, it is important not to anticipate the results of the investigation; It can never be ruled out that forms of group pressure or unilateralism may occur at the university. But it is better to leave behind as soon as possible the idea that academic freedom means that “everything must be said” in the university. It is total for a fruitful conversation about academic freedom and its limits. not starter.

The fact of the matter here is that academic freedom is limited by standards of academic rigor; these are even two sides of the same coin. This means that the scientific quality of a study is assessed based on, among other things, the honesty and independence of the researcher, the sound substantiation, and the transparency of data and sources. In other words, articles that contain blatant falsehoods, questionable arguments, no references to sources, or very mediocre representations of sources can probably be published in all sorts of places (for example, on a blog), but they don’t deserve the tag. scientist article. Of course, there is more to say about this – such as the place of value judgments, the humanities or the importance of dissent – ​​but if the debate on academic freedom begins with the understanding of this freedom as academic rigor, I think it would be a big profit.

Kigali would become the new Ter Apel in the plan

The political party that firmly puts “the danger of awakening” on the agenda is JA21, among other things dedicating a conference to it. It’s kind of a guess what the group would say about the guest lecture I attended, but presumably not a very good one. It is also the party that won a parliamentary majority last week to back a motion that wants to investigate whether “partner countries” can take over asylum seekers from the Netherlands for payment. The motion states that this offers “promising opportunities” to resolve the asylum crisis.

Last week, a group of scientists deciphered this plan on radio, television and in opinion pieces. Does this relative consensus show that science really is “awake”? I don’t believe it. As Thomas Spijkerboer said earlier in The green he wrote, such a plan would be legally possible. So, for example, Kigali would become the new Ter Apel: the Netherlands would remain fully responsible and the Dutch asylum procedure, including all appeal options, would take place in Rwanda. And asylum seekers who are entitled to a status are flown to the Netherlands. Or to another country for sure, but given the aforementioned resettlement statistics, it’s unlikely anyone would want them, so probably just the Netherlands. The question is if JA21 wants this.

Another option is for asylum seekers to be fully transferred to the partner country and its asylum procedures, but this is legally more difficult. This would only be possible if the eviction does not foreseeably entail a violation of rights. As this cannot always be guaranteed, the European Court of Human Rights earlier canceled the UK’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda (a dictatorship with little respect for fundamental rights).

Scientists who conclude that this movement – ​​surprisingly CDA, vvd en Omtzigt voted in favor – calls for a plan that is legal and virtually impossible to implement, that shifts the global refugee problem to other countries and is likely to lead to human rights violations, are therefore not woke up. They do their job carefully.