A student from Vienna is fighting against the gender compulsion at his university and could definitely be successful with it. Guidelines and a guide specify left-wing ideological gender rules, although these do not correspond to the official spelling. Failure to do so may result in the student’s work being deducted. The student of transcultural communication at the Center for Translation Studies (ZTW) at the University of Vienna did not want to simply accept this and therefore took legal action against it.
by Julius Hunter
“It is not the task of the university to contribute to a ‘change of the world’ through a certain form of language in coursework, as formulated in the guideline,” explained his lawyer, Dr. Gerald Ganzger from the Viennese law firm Lansky, Ganzger, Goeth, Frankl and Partner. “The course aims to enable young people to translate texts – free of ideology and political intentions”, clarified Ganzer. He also made it clear how wrong it is to “force a student to open a meta-level and change the content of a text in an ideological way”, because that “exceeds the competence of the lecturers”.
Gendering is unrealistic, especially since the university itself uses terms such as “plaintiff”, “appeal opponent”, “judge” and so on in other publications accepts that the generic masculine addresses all people, regardless of gender. “It is unacceptable that students have to use politicized language without a legal basis in order not to fear negative effects on their studies. Elsewhere you would call that ‘blackmail’,” says Ganzger. That is why “the independent dictation by the examiners […] simply not acceptable.”
According to Klaus Kaindl, head of the study program at the Center for Translation Studies, there is supposedly no such obligation officially. in the Standard he said students needn’t fear lower grades if they don’t follow the guidelines. Gender is only relevant to grades in individual courses – namely where texts are to be translated in a gender-appropriate manner for practice purposes. In later professional life, clients may want a “gender-appropriate translation”. “The whole thing is an emotional issue,” said Kaindl, “there are students who see it as a fundamental attack on their freedom.”
The Studienpräses of the University of Vienna, which is responsible for matters relating to study law, must now decide on the application. The student’s goal: Obtaining a decision “that guarantees that the omission of gender-appropriate language will not lead to a poorer assessment.” In future exams, the student could then present the decision, it said in the standard.
Mr. Kaindl may even be right in principle that there is no official obligation, but just because there are no legal obligations does not mean that there is no pressure. It is well known that he who has power is right. And such a compulsion to gender comes from left-wing lecturers, left-wing professors and left-wing student administrations or student councils. Of all the Reds, who in terms of power are one level higher than an ordinary student, who now apparently sees no other way out than to take legal action against this officially non-existent, but factually existing compulsion. His lawyer Dr. Incidentally, Gerald Ganzger expects a decision on this in the next six months.
