„The Unequal University“: A hierarchical society with a professor at the top.

The university is not as it should be, but it is also not what it once was. If the university were as it should be, it would not need constant reform, and if it were as it once was, it would be a relic: still present but without function. Universities must adapt, but also resist the changing times. The fact that universities are institutions in a changing society, where social and political transformations must be visible, is the main point of many university writings from the progressive camp. And in this case, the progressives are right: If up to 25 percent of the population have a migration or refugee background, this part of the population is not or only very limitedly represented among the teaching and research staff at universities. Just visit the homepage of any institute: you will find Andreas and Eva-Maria everywhere, but rarely a Cem or a Zeynab, let alone Kevins and Mandys.

Sabine Harks and Johanna Hofbauer’s essay „The Unequal University“ starts from an unsustainable condition. The university reproduces structural racism and continues to discriminate in its personnel and scientific structure. The authors argue that the university, as it is currently presented, must become more diverse, fairer, and more inclusive. If this does not happen, they believe the university will fail: „The university of the future is the university of many – or it is not.“ The apocalyptic tone runs throughout the entire text. The university must not remain „under any circumstances“ as it is: neither in its personnel structures, nor in terms of management, nor in terms of the role that universities play in the scientific and higher education system. The authors make it clear in more than one place that a catastrophe and the tragedy of the modern university, namely its downfall, are imminent. Not coincidentally, the book begins with the famous quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: „Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.“

Hark and Hofbauer explore the current issues in university politics in their highly readable text, which is aimed not only at university members but also at a wider audience. They discuss the destruction of an idea, commercialization, and inequality. In the first chapter, they visit a ruin to symbolize the „destruction“ of the university. The unattainable and contradictory demands of politics create a void in the university’s identity: „In this vacuum, universities juggle with a variety of very different and sometimes incompatible ideas about themselves, without these efforts yet revealing a mature and coherent image.“ The goal is to achieve excellence and promote inclusivity among a diverse student body, but subtle yet powerful mechanisms of exclusion driven by elitism still persist. To quote Hamlet without citation: „If this be madness, yet there is method in’t.“ The university believes itself to be a meritocratic organization where only performance matters, but it is actually representative of a class-based society with professors at the top.

The therapy proposed by Harks and Hofbauer, resulting from the diagnosis of the ruined university, can be summarized as follows: A successful therapy is the „more and more“. More inclusion, more equality, more participation and involvement of underrepresented population groups. This is very likable, but unrealistic. If a university rector or a chancellor reads this book, it will suffer the usual bureaucratic fate: read, laughed at, and forgotten. It’s unfortunate, but also normal.