Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on May 11, 2024. It was translated into English by the Observatory before being edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission.
Recently, the end-of-year medical exam at Sorbonne Paris Nord University was the subject of a lively controversy. Some of the questions asked of students included ideological and geopolitical references that had no connection with medical training, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Although the management has acknowledged “blunders,” it has not taken the full measure of this worrying political infiltration into the academic sanctuary that the university should be.
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The inclusion of such issues in a medical exam goes beyond the limits of what is acceptable. It reveals a profound subversion of the educational objectives that should promote scientific objectivity, merit, and excellence, the pillars of medical progress. Higher education is intended to transmit factual knowledge and encourage critical thinking without any ideological considerations.
Instead, we are witnessing a regrettable interference of politics and ideological agendas in education, threatening the very foundations of our knowledge society. The university must remain a space for free thought, production and transmission of knowledge, free from partisan pressures. Tolerating such actions is tantamount to opening Pandora’s box and jeopardizing the independence of higher education from ideologies.
If such abuses become commonplace and widespread, what future is there for our higher education system? Should we tolerate politicized movements with partisan aims dictating the content of university programs to the detriment of the impartial training of future doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc.? In the long term, this could seriously compromise the quality of the training provided and the competence of graduates.
It is, therefore, crucial that the academic community as a whole mobilizes to strongly reaffirm the fundamental principles of integrity, neutrality, independence, and secularism that must prevail in higher education institutions. We must refuse to give in to external pressures from whatever quarter, whether political, religious, or otherwise, that could corrupt our age-old educational standards, protected by academic freedom.
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Beyond simple academic rigor, it is a major societal responsibility that falls to academic authorities. They must guarantee the highest quality education for future generations, free from any form of ideological indoctrination or propaganda. The future of our country, the competence of our elites, the quality of public and private services depend on it. We therefore ask the President of the Sorbonne Paris-Nord University what measures he intends to take to sanction these abuses and ensure that they do not happen again.
Image of Centre Pantheon, Panthéon-Sorbonne University by Billy Wilson on Flickr