Geraldine Rauch, President of TU, desires to keep her position.
Recently, a university president faced backlash after "liking" anti-Semitic posts on a digital platform. Geraldine Rauch, president of the Technical University of Berlin, sparked controversy when she engaged with a post featuring images of Turkish demonstrators holding a photograph of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a swastika painted on it. She clarified that she had accidentally hit the "like" button, without noticing the blatantly racist content attached to the images.
This incident didn't sit well with the university's Senate, who held a vote to decide whether Rauch should resign from her position. After a close vote, 13 members favored her departure, while 12 members advocated for her to remain. Although the vote wasn't legally binding, the Senate's anxieties were palpable. Rauch, however, had no intentions of stepping down. "I have received many calls and statements urging me to stay. I will not resign," she declared.
Then, the issue took on a political dimension when CDU leader Friedrich Merz brought it up during the internal security debate in the Bundestag. He emphasized the importance of compelling Rauch to resign, stating, "If anti-Semitism should not have a place in Germany, then President Rauch of the Technical University of Berlin must resign." He even went as far as to request that Chancellor Olaf Scholz exclude Rauch from the Federal Council in the Federal Chancellery of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Despite this controversy, Rauch released a statement, emphasizing her commitment to disavowing anti-Semitic content. "I have the most abysmal relationship to anti-Semitism and antisemitic sentiments," she declared. In her statement, Rauch specifies that she didn't carefully examine the post she "liked" and regrets any potential harm she caused by engaging with the content.
However, she also revealed that she appreciated likes on other comments in the thread as they merely consisted of "peaceful calls for a ceasefire in Gaza." These comments were not anti-Semitic, according to Rauch, and therefore, she had no reason to be consciously aware or cautious about them. Amid the mounting pressure, Rauch's future at the university remains uncertain, but her refusal to vacate the position demonstrates her willingness to confront the issue head-on.
