Joan W. Scott, professor emerita, Institute for Advanced Study, writing in Academe Blog: “Frankfurter meant publicly standing up to those who would interfere with scholarly work on the grounds of politics, race, national fealty or religious belief, ironically precisely what German “reason of state” is now imposing on its own universities as it proscribes any scholarship or teaching critical of Israeli policy in the name of combatting antisemitism. Frankfurter wanted the German professoriat to be held morally accountable for their complicity with the Nazi regime, which discriminated on those grounds. He added that they “had better not serve as a watershed for our enlightenment—except by way of dangers to avoid.” In the light of these comments, I would speculate that Frankfurter would have agreed that, now as then, public declarations of institutional neutrality are not an option when the very mission of higher education’s pursuit of knowledge is at stake.” Read the full commentary here.