In the meantime, the school administration has justified itself for leaving its Instagram channel to radical left-wing queer activists. The political dimension was not recognized.
A diverse society gathers under the rainbow flag, including anti-capitalist activists.
The Instagram account of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) is sometimes given to third parties. They can use the reach of the channel to draw attention to their concerns. During the International Midwife Day, for example, prospective midwives were able to report on their training.
As part of the Zurich Pride Festival last June, the university left its channel to queer activists. In hindsight, that turned out to be a big mistake. Because the activists did not use the channel to promote more tolerance and openness. Instead, they placed a demo call by an anti-capitalist organization on the Zurich state educational institution’s Instagram account.
The post drew outraged reactions. The ZHAW quickly publicly expressed its regret that there had been a contribution with a political background. The incident also had political consequences. A cantonal councilor and two cantonal councilors demanded information about the incidents.
hey @ZHAW – do you know that your insta account was hijacked? Wtf? pic.twitter.com/rEdrmoMLMU
— Perparim Avdili (@PerparimAvdili) June 19, 2022
On Thursday, the government published its response to the incident, which in turn is based on information from the university. According to these, the activists did not have a completely free hand over the account. Instead, several employees checked the article before publication, but did not recognize its political message. Measures have been taken to prevent such incidents in the future.
ZHAW diversity team costs half a million a year
It could get really uncomfortable for the ZHAW when deliberating on the cantonal budget for 2023. Not just because of the anti-capitalist campaign, but because of a diversity team at the university. This consists of five people and costs over half a million francs a year.
The staff unit deals with topics such as a «Guide to inclusive language use». This “takes up the current discourse on gender, non-binarity, diversity and inclusion”, as the introduction says. Even linguistically harmless expressions such as “decrepit infrastructure” are discriminatory; it is correctly called «dilapidated infrastructure».
Inquiries are pending in the cantonal council. The non-party Hans-Peter Amrein (Küsnacht) wants to know what consequences it has for the evaluation of a work if the language is not used in a gender-appropriate manner. Above all, however, Amrein has submitted an application to the budget to cut 750,000 francs from the university.
«Totalitarian attitude like in a dictatorship»
The application is directed against the diversity department of the ZHAW. This is to be resized, and its employees are to be transferred to other back-office functions when positions become vacant.
“If a department feels that it needs to rewrite the dictionary and issue language guidelines for gender-appropriate language, then it has to be dissolved and people deployed where the ZHAW can do something,” says Amrein. The diversity office shows a totalitarian attitude that is otherwise only known from dictatorships.
However, the diversity office’s area of responsibility also includes tasks such as the integration of people with disabilities. They should have barrier-free access to their studies. “Of course I have nothing against that,” says Amrein. “But then they should also appoint those responsible accordingly.” His request for a reduction does not include any reduction in the care and integration of disabled people at the ZHAW.
Should his motion go through, which would come as a surprise given the majority in parliament, it would not shake the ZHAW to its very foundations financially. Your total budget would then still be almost 430 million francs.