Not a Right-Wing Academy at All: One Revolution Must Occur at the Summit in Israel

Prof. Moshe Cohen-Eliya calls for removing politics from Israeli academia while preserving academic freedom. He criticizes the politicization of universities, including the March 2023 strike, and proposes principles of institutional neutrality and transparency, referencing the Kalven Report and Government Decision 666.

In an opinion piece in Maariv, Prof. Moshe Cohen-Eliya argues that Israeli academia has become too politicized and proposes a principle of institutional neutrality. He mentions the case of Claudine Gay at Harvard, who resigned in 2024 after criticism of her congressional testimony, and the university strike in March 2023, which he says was a political strike prohibited by law. He criticizes university diversity departments, which he claims provide affirmative action for women and Arabs, but not for Mizrahim, because Mizrahim tend to vote right-wing. He calls for adopting the principle of the 1967 Kalven Report of the University of Chicago, which separates freedom of expression of university members from institutional neutrality. He also suggests reexamining Government Decision 666 from 1977, which granted the Planning and Budgeting Committee independent status. In his view, the solution is not to silence lecturers but to remove politics from the institution while preserving academic freedom.