As the executive board, we focus on three frameworks in matters such as these: laws and regulations, adhering to the standards applicable to such an academic meeting, and ensuring the safety of those involved.
Laws and regulations
Currently, Mr Khatib has been denied entry to the Netherlands by the government. On this basis, the announced lecture on Monday 28 October will not take place at Radboud University, including online.
Standards for an academic meeting
The norms for an academic meeting are first of all founded in the principle of academic freedom, as set out in recent documents on this subject by the KNAW (2021) and by the Stolker Committee (2023, established by the University of Amsterdam). At its core, a university should, in principle, be able to have an academic conversation about everything. As the Executive Board, we are reluctant to take a stand in or prevent a debate. It is important for a university board to give its employees and students space by refraining from taking a stand on the content and not curtailing them. This restraint is grounded in the fundamental trust that employees and students want what is right for the university and science. Universities were founded to develop knowledge in an ongoing joint debate, through position-taking and critical questioning. Scientists each have the individual freedom and concomitant responsibility to have their own input in this. Our job as the Executive Board is to facilitate the debate to the best of our ability and at the same time guard the boundaries that are conditional for that debate. What are those conditions?
If scientists - staff or students - believe that external speakers are needed as a source of knowledge development in their field of science, that is an aspect of that academic freedom. In doing so, it is the responsibility of the inviting scientists to ensure, and explain, that a speaker's arrival has a recognisable relationship to their own expertise and is relevant to the university as a science institution. The university is not available as a platform for those who actively seek to undermine confidence in the value of science or who do not want to open themselves up to critical questioning. Also, the university can specify when and where a lecture will take place. It goes without saying that a speaker and all those taking part in the debate must comply with laws and regulations. Criminal expressions such as calls for law-breaking, discrimination, anti-Semitism or violence are not allowed.
In response to the announced lecture by Mohammed Khatib, the Executive Board earlier issued a notice on this particular initiative and its initiators, referring to the norms for an academic meeting and stating that it must comply with the conditions set out therein.
Safety of those involved
As the Executive Board, we are responsible for both the university as an institution of knowledge and the university as a community of staff and students. A central premise of the latter is that everyone in this community must be able to feel safe; physically, of course, but also as a member of the social community we form together. This was explicitly stated in the recent social safety action plan Prevent Care Cure.
An important question is who counts as those involved in the case of an academic meeting with an external speaker. If many feel and show involvement- for better or worse-then the impact on the university community increases. As the Executive Board, we engage with representatives of concerned groups, both initiators and concerned staff, students and others. The tensions and insecurity experienced within the community are relevant if they start to affect how open academic debate can be conducted. Then they can touch on the university's mission : to provide scientific education, to conduct scientific research and to develop and share scientific knowledge in close interaction with society.
In conclusion
Academic debates can cause chafing and discomfort within the university and in society; this is allowed, and sometimes even necessary, as academic freedom is an important principle for individual scientists and for the university as a knowledge institution. At the same time, scientists within the university are fellow human beings of each other and at the centre of society. Academic meetings can be impactful. However, the open and inclusive academic conversation in which everyone can safely participate is a prerequisite for fulfilling our social mission as a university. Guarding the balance feels like an important responsibility for us as the Executive Board.