Tribune. The director of the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Grenoble, as well as forty lecturer-researchers from this establishment, joined by 770 former students, wanted to defend the reputation of Sciences Po Grenoble, which they consider unfairly cause since the spring 2021 crisis.
For them, this crisis is essentially the result of political instrumentalization on the part of certain media and the right because, in their eyes, there is no serious problem at the IEP, a school that they consider fully acquired. pluralism of ideas and scientific rigour.
This analysis seems insufficient. The poster collages of March 4, 2021 [dénonçant « l’islamophobie »] do not fall from the sky. The political recovery by the right has only been made possible because the left is absent on secularism. As for the IEP, is it as pluralistic as our colleagues claim?
Let us pass over the awkwardness of the director, who finds nothing better to cite, by way of proof, than the arrival of the minister in charge of relations with Parliament. Let us rather note that, since March, Klaus Kinzler [enseignant de civilisation allemande à l’IEP] and I are considered provocateurs or, worse, “right-wing” teachers with all the contempt that is supposed to accompany that label.
moralizing institution
The fact that we are seen as provocateurs calls out. What is a provocation if not a dissonant note in a monochord ensemble? Now, doesn’t our job as teachers consist in disturbing the students or, at least, in maintaining the plurality of points of view? In this sense, the whole university should be a place of provocation. If pluralism prevailed in our institute, would we have seen our names plastered on the walls?
In recent years, the IEP of Grenoble, like many higher education establishments, has tended to become a moralizing institution, which reduces the field of acceptable ideas. Formulas such as “green IEP” or “inclusive IEP” have been formalized without encountering opposition. The famous “Week for equality and against discrimination”, organized each year, aims less to make students reflect than to subject them to moral injunctions.
It was also during the preparation for this event, when students and a colleague wanted to impose the term “Islamophobia” alongside racism and anti-Semitism, that we intervened, which earned being denounced and accused on social networks by a student union.
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