The teacher who accused Sciences Po Grenoble of being an institute of “political re-education” suspended for defamation

A professor from Sciences Po Grenoble, accused of“Islamophobia” at the beginning of the year, was suspended from his functions by the management, which accuses him of having held, since, “Defamatory remarks”, we learned on Monday, December 20.

The order of the director of the Institute of Political Studies (IEP), Sabine Saurugger, revealed by Le Figaro, refers to interviews granted at the beginning of December by the teacher, Klaus Kinzler, to the site of the weekly Marianne, daily Opinion and the CNews channel. The German teacher has, according to the director, “Seriously ignored several obligations”, especially in terms of “Professional discretion”. “It is necessary to seize the disciplinary council”, she adds in the decree which suspends him for four months.

A “witch hunt”, according to the teacher

In his interviews, the teacher described the IEP as an institute of “Political re-education”, accusing a “Hard core” of colleagues, followers, according to him, of theories “Woke”, to indoctrinate the students, and the direction of the IEP to let it go.

For his lawyers, who denounce a ” witch hunt “, Mr. Kinzler “Was forced to speak in order to defend himself” after being implicated “In the public square”. “It poisons my life, but maybe you have to go all the way to find out who has the right to say what and in what situation”, said the teacher, citing a possible appeal to the administrative court.

Contacted, the management of the IEP of Grenoble did not wish to react to “An internal measure”. December 13, in an interview given to Marianne, M^me Saurugger had stood up for the establishment. “Mr. Kinzler criticizes a number of facts which are not correct. He says in particular that the management never protected him. Sciences Po Grenoble is an establishment where freedom of expression and freedom of education are at the heart of the academic project ”, she had said.

Sixteen out of seventeen students released

At the origin of the case, at the end of 2020, Mr Kinzler and a fellow historian had exchanged vehement emails about a day of debates entitled “Racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia”, terms whose scientific character he contested, while criticizing Islam.

On March 4, Mr. Kinzler and another teacher were the target of posters posted by students, relayed on social networks by unions. “Fascists in our lecture halls. Islamophobia kills “, could we read on these posters. The director of the IEP had condemned “Very clearly” these posters, while believing that Mr. Kinzler’s way of speaking about Islam was “Extremely problematic”.

On November 26, sixteen of the seventeen IEP students prosecuted before a disciplinary body were relaxed, while the Minister of Higher Education had advocated sanctions against them. Only one was the subject of a suspended temporary exclusion.

In one message posted on Twitter, the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez, however, indicated that he would suspend regional funding – around 100,000 euros per year excluding investments in projects – due to the “Long ideological and communitarian drift”, who comes from “Take a new step” with the suspension of the teacher. According to him, “A minority confiscated the debate” within the establishment, “Without management taking the measure of this worrying drift”.