Education Minister Gidon Saar spoke Sunday in defense of the Council for Higher Education’s decision to shut down Ben Gurion University’s Political Science department. The Council has been accused of shutting down the department because of its extreme-left political leanings.
The Council has a job to ensure that universities are held to certain standards of quality, Saar said, and the department in question was warned that it was not up to standard but failed to make changes. “Not every academic failure can hide behind ‘academic freedom,’” he said.
Attempts to intimidate the Council for Higher Education or to put pressure on the body will not work, he added.