University Rector Karel Luyben is to meet Coen Vermeeren, Head of the Studium Generale, in May to discuss the bureau’s programming policy. The meeting has been prompted by tonight’s controversial lecture about the 9/11 attacks in New York.
The lecture, entitled “The 9/11 Building Collapse: ‘It’s time to talk about it’”, is being given by Richard Gage of the group Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth. He believes the towers of the World Trade Centre were destroyed by explosives.
The university management board is not pleased about the situation and has let it be known it ‘has doubts’ about whether the lecture contributes to the aims of the Stadium Generale. That is why the board will ‘check again soon if the programme sufficiently meets the aims, as well as the expectations and needs of the student body’.
Asked to clarify this position, Karel Luyben said he had nothing further to add. He will try to be present for part of the evening, he said.
Vermeeren says he has been clear to the board about the way this lecture has been organized. “This lecture was announced in the programme council some time ago. We will ensure an opposing view is heard as well,”’ he said. However, the organisers have not yet found a TU professor who is able to take part in the panel this evening. “Professors have a wide variety of reasons [not to],” he said. “They are either unavailable or don’t have sufficient expertise.”
Astronomer and Professor of Innovative Management Dap Hartmann said he suspects Vermeeren has been very selective in who has been invited. “He knows very well who can offer an opposing viewpoint but that is not what he and Richard Gage want,” Hartmann said. “So he is approaching engineers who have never looked into these issues. That is completely unscientific.”
Vermeeren said the not having a professor to present an opposing viewpoint is no reason to cancel the lecture. “This speaker is in Europe for a limited time only,” he said. “Not having an opposing viewpoint is down to the priorities of those who have an opposing position. A number of students are prepared to take part in the panel.”
The students, said Hartmann, are not sufficiently prepared and will be blasted away by Gage. He regards the lack of opposing viewpoints as troublesome and wants to see a list of the people Vermeeren had invited. At the beginning of this month he posted to Twitter: “Really? My university is offering a platform to Richard Gage (9/11 conspiracy theory)? 1,000 apologies people.”
Hartmann was on the editorial board of the Studium Generale for years but left because he disagreed with the programming strategy. “I apologized because many people have approached me and asked why the university is giving a platform to this sort of nutcase. I’m always having to make excuses about ridiculous lectures. First it was UFOs, then homeopathy, now 9/11. You can put together a decent story about 9/11. You can put forward a conspiracy theory and you can show why it is nonsense but now you are letting a single person speak, someone who fills his days with giving these sorts of lectures.”
Hartmann said he has been asked why he does not go to the lecture himself and pose those critical questions. “It would be tempting but I am not going to do it because it is not my job and I don’t think there is any point,’ he said. ‘They don’t want to hear my opposing arguments. Why should I waste my evening? It will boil down to personalities and who has the best one-liners.”
The lecture, said Hartmann will involve assertions that the World Trade Centre towers collapsed at free fall speed. “’Then it has to have been a demolition’, they say,” Hartmann continued. ‘But look at the videos. Some of the debris falls more quickly than the tower itself. The free fall argument is simply not true. It has been proved that the two planes flew into the towers and that they then collapsed.”
Hartmann’s most important objection is that Gage’s group is deriving status from giving a lecture at TU Delft. “Now you can ask yourself how dangerous that actually is, but where does it stop?” he said. “Will we soon be offering a platform to Holocaust denier David Irving? Someone who promotes paedophilia, or IS? That is why I am apologizing.”
Vermeeren said he does not understand why Hartmann would compare the lecture with a Holocaust denier. “Gage has content and expertise,” he said. “There will be questions and discussion. Hartmann is focusing on what TU Delft can do. It is all very well to have an opinion, and I respect it, but I don’t think Hartmann is the university. TU Delft astronomers are all very interesting but we can all be sure that he is not an engineer.”
Vermeeren says he is sorry that Hartmann is trying to occupy the high moral ground. “One of his arguments is that we should protect students from this sort of noise, but we are educating academics to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. Controversy is part of university discussion. Exactly that.”
The Studium Generale head says he is not concerned about the board’s plan to investigate if his programming sufficiently meets the needs of the student body. “I can defend it,” he said. “Hundreds of people are coming.”
Demand to attend the lecture is so great that it will be live streamed on the collegerama.
Comments are closed.