Executive Board: Cancelling Eva Illouz was ‘a mistake on our part’

The decision to cancel sociologist Eva Illouz as a speaker at a lecture organised by the Erasmus Love Lab was ‘a mistake on our part’, rector magnificus Jantine Schuit admits in an open letter to Illouz. “A feeling of discomfort and doubt should never be a reason to withdraw an invitation.”

The letter was published on Friday on the Erasmus University website. Earlier, the Erasmus Love Lab team had withdrawn an invitation to the French-Israeli Eva Illouz for a lecture that was due to take place on 21 November. That decision was made ‘democratically and not unanimously’, the Love Lab informed Illouz.

The reason given for the cancellation was that the team ‘did not feel comfortable’ with the sociologist’s visit. In addition to her position at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris, she is also affiliated with the Hebrew University. EUR has frozen ties with that university at an institutional level due to the risk of involvement in human rights violations in Gaza. Individual ties, such as in this case, have not been frozen. The French-Israeli sociologist described the cancellation as ‘a bona fide antisemitic decision’.

Apology

Following the cancellation, a faculty spokesperson said the matter concerned ‘an issue between individuals’ on which the faculty or the university would not normally comment. Nevertheless, rector magnificus Jantine Schuit has now issued an apology to Illouz on behalf of the Executive Board. She calls it ‘a mistake on our part’. “It raised legitimate questions and indignation given the background of the current highly sensitive geopolitical situation”, the letter states.

In the letter, Schuit suggests that the academics may have started to question the invitation ‘in light of your affiliation with the Hebrew University’. “They need not have doubted it, because EUR has not imposed any restrictions on working with academics based on such affiliations.”

The rector invites Illouz to take part in a dialogue session on academic freedom. Illouz told NRC that for her, the matter is now settled. It is not clear whether she has accepted the invitation.

It is also unclear whether the Love Lab team supports the letter and believes itself that cancelling Illouz was the wrong decision. The project leader declined to respond to EM’s questions on the matter and referred to the university’s spokesperson.

Withdrawal ‘not permitted’ on grounds of discomfort

The spokesperson also did not answer questions about the Love Lab’s involvement in drafting the letter. However, she did say that the Executive Board and the academics involved are ‘still in discussions to evaluate exactly what happened’.

She also emphasised the Executive Board’s position that invitations should not be cancelled lightly. “That an invitation was withdrawn due to feelings of discomfort and doubt turned out, in hindsight, to be unjustified. An invitation may not be withdrawn due to feelings of discomfort and doubt. For that, we have offered our apologies. The Executive Board recognises that we still have steps to take in providing greater clarity on how we deal with inviting external academics to seminars and conferences. We have learned from this”, the spokesperson explained.

Eva Illouz is professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She was recently excluded from the prestigious Israel Prize, the country’s highest cultural honour, after signing a petition calling for an investigation into war crimes in Gaza. She also criticised left-wing academics in a pamphlet for downplaying the terrorist attack by Hamas.