A panel organized by Schütze for the Conference of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO) in 2025 was deemed potentially illegal by the anti-Semitism commissioner at the University of Erlangen: "The anti-Semitism commissioner sent us an email demanding that we refrain from using the term 'genocide' and change the title of the presentation. By subtly hinting that he had informed the Bavarian senior prosecutor, he implicitly threatened legal consequences. Thanks to a co-organizer of the conference, we learned that our panel was not considered actionable and could take place."
Although the panel could take place in the end, the intervention of the anti-Semitism commissioner had serious consequences: "One researcher canceled her participation, others obtained legal protection insurances. The incident shows that constitutional rights cannot be taken for granted and that professional help is needed to enforce them against the troops of the reason of state."
Schütze concludes from this: "The reason of state does not serve to combat Anti-Semitism, but rather to institutionalize the German support for genocide in Gaza, to normalize anti-Arab racism, and to defame researchers who show solidarity with Palestine." Academia is not unaffected by this: "The research landscape is also being restructured along the lines of the reason of state, for example through state-funded research projects against 'Israel-related anti-Semitism', in which scientific quality standards are deliberately evaded and racist assumptions are reproduced."