British Weeklies Urge Universities to Boycott Goettingen Anniversary

Two prominent British periodicals, the New Statesman and Spectator, joined today in urging all English universities to abstain from sending representatives to the bicentenary celebration of Goettingen University, which is to be held on June 30.

Pointing out that the date is the third anniversary of the “blood purge,” the New Statesman counselled the universities to send remonstrances instead of delegates. It also recalled that June 30 marks the hundredth anniversary of the expulsion of seven famous professors for protesting the revocation of the liberal constitution of 1833 by King Ernest Augustus of Hanover.

Headlining its article “An Invitation to Decline,” the Spectator declares:

“Invitations to the ceremony have been sent to learned institutions world wide, but have been refused by the Royal Society, universities in Birmingham and also northwestern universities. No British university is known to have accepted because a scientist can no longer teach there without suffering persecution.

“The issue is between science which aims at the truth and science which aims at serving the State. On its second centenary, Goettingen celebrates the removal of 51 teachers who, because of race, were not acceptable to the new regime. Goettingen will celebrate the destruction of a great school of mathematical physics, built partly with Rockefeller funds, its members now refugees.

“The date June 30 cannot be accidental, because it is not that of the university’s foundation; there can be no cruder way of telling. To celebrate the humiliation of Goettingen on such a day would be for English delegates a betrayal of everything for which our universities are supposed to stand.”