The opening of the new academic year was largely marked by protests, both indoors and outdoors.
Outside the Martini Church, there was a protest by pro-Palestinian activists who want the UG to sever all ties with Israel, while inside, there were protests against the extensive budget cuts to higher education planned by the new government.
Around thirty protesters lay down in front of the entrance of the Martini church, where the opening of the academic year is traditionally held, forcing the procession of student associations and professors in their academic robes to step over them.
During the ceremony inside the church, the protesters set off sirens and banged on one of the heavy side doors of the church. As a result, the door gave way, and due to the loud noise and banging on the wood, rector Jacquelien Scherpen had to temporarily halt her speech.
Megaphone
The police intervened and confiscated a megaphone that was amplifying the sound of an alarm siren. Shortly afterward, officers made three arrests at the Grote Markt following a scuffle on the steps of the Town Hall. The detainees were released shortly thereafter.
Mayor Koen Schuiling of Groningen reassured the people in the Martini Church in his speech shortly afterward: ‘Everything is fine outside, don’t worry.’
Tension
Rector Jacquelien Scherpen expressed her concerns about the polarisation and hostility that, as she quoted from a report by, among others, UG professor Janka Stoker, ‘strike at the heart of academic freedom and lead to undesirable self-censorship or other forms of unwarranted restraint among researchers, lecturers, and students’.
‘This is exactly what I have seen happening around me over the past year. The intensity and bitterness of protests made people afraid to speak out. People with expertise deliberately kept a low profile, causing expertise and knowledge to go unused. It’s very unfortunate because they are precisely the ones who can enrich the debate.’
Budget cuts
UG president Jouke de Vries focused his criticism particularly on the politicians in The Hague, who are now easily discarding previously made agreements with higher education, including those with former education minister Robbert Dijkgraaf.
The announced budget cuts of around one billion euros, equivalent to the annual budget of a large university or two smaller ones, will hit particularly hard in the regions where coalition partners NSC and BBB claim to be advocating, De Vries said.
‘The blow will be felt most in regions like Twente, Maastricht, and Groningen. At a time when there is talk of an honorary debt to the province of Groningen, this is especially odd.’