University heads try to block Ariel center's bid for university status

The Committee of University Heads petitioned the High Court of Justice on Monday with a request to reverse a recent decision to grant official university status to the Ariel University Center in Samaria.

The petition was filed against the Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria, the body that decided to upgrade the school's status; the GOC Central Command, who, as the authority with jurisdiction over the Samaria region, had to authorize the university’s new status, and the government, namely the finance, education and defense ministers.

The petitioners argued that the decision by the Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria to grant the institution university status was "a severely faulty decision," and that "there were severe, fundamental faults in each of the three main considerations for a decision to grant university recognition — academic, planning and budgeting — and each one alone warrants a reversal of the decision."

Meanwhile, Israel Hayom has discovered that Professor Amos Altshuler, the head of the Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria, recently issued a letter to GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, in which he wrote that "the council decided to permanently recognize the Ariel University Center as an official university," and requested that Alon authorize and implement the council's decision.

Last month, the members of the council decided to upgrade the status of the Ariel institution. The decision ran contrary to the recommendation of the Council for Higher Education's Planning and Budgeting Committee. However, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar was in favor of the upgrade from the start, and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz promised to allot an additional budget of 50 million shekels ($12.4 million) to the fledgling university in coming years.

The Ariel University Center issued an official response to the petition, saying, "The main university cartel's petition to the High Court of Justice exposes the true motives behind this move. The university in Ariel is a fact that cannot be ignored, and you can't turn the wheels of progress backward."

The petition also elicited responses from both ends of the political spectrum. Likud MK Danny Danon said Monday that "this is cheap politicization of the academic world, undermining its integrity."

Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely, who heads the lobby that has been pushing for university recognition, remarked that "this petition removes the academic facade from the political claims of the university heads."

On the other hand, Hadash MK Dov Khenin said that "the petition was necessary after the government trampled on and ignored academic considerations and all the procedural guidelines."

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