hu wissen (pdf) - Exzellenzinitiative - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Eine Juristin, die ihre politische
Sozialisierung in der autonomen Frauenbewegung
erfahren hat, das gab es am
Bundesverfassungs gericht noch nie
A jurist who experienced her political
socialization in the autonomous women’s
movement? Defi nitely a fi rst for the Federal
Constitutional Court
A jurist who experienced her political socialization in the autonomous
women’s movement? Defi nitely a fi rst for the Federal
Constitutional Court. Baer studied law and political science at
Freie Universität Berlin. She was awarded her PhD for a dissertation
on an »Appropriate Fundamental-Rights Conception of the
Right Against Discrimination – the example of sexual harassment
at the workplace in Germany and the United States« and has published
in the German-language feminist law journal Streit. While
still a student she became involved in projects to combat domestic
violence and support gender equality. In 1988 – in one of her fi rst
legal publications – she wrote a dra� law that would allow those
directly aff ected, and women’s organizations, to take legal action
against pornography, defi ned as sexual violence. Later, she built
up BIG – the »Berlin Initiative against Domestic Violence« – into
a successful nationwide project. If you ask her, you will learn a lot
about her work on pressing, otherwise taboo issues. Some people
call that radical; Susanne Baer calls it political action beyond
ideology.
Baer is regarded as a brilliant academic. Since 2002 she has
been Professor of Public Law and Gender Studies at Humboldt-
Universität’s Faculty of Law and its Centre for Transdisciplinary
Gender Studies. She concerns herself with anti-discrimination
law, equality issues and international comparisons of fundamental
rights.
She also has close, inside experience of the political scene. As
an advisor to the federal government, Baer was head of Humboldt-Universität’s
Gender Competence Centre until 2010. In this
context, she approached the cultural, gender and social sciences
from the angle of academic law studies.«
As a logical next step, in 2008 she founded the Law and Society
Institute (institute for interdisciplinary legal research) at
Humboldt-Universität. The 47-year-old is now taking to Karlsruhe
her experience in actively engaging with diversity across disciplinary
boundaries.
98
It is the youngest Senate that the Constitutional Court has
ever had, although she dismisses this thought when asked about
it. Baer herself has written about age discrimination. Age, she has
repeatedly said, is just one of many aspects that shape a person;
it says nothing about their experience and values. She has thought
a lot about diversity, believes it helps us to make better and wiser
decisions. In addition to age, Susanne Baer says diversity also
includes gender, religion, origin and lifestyle.
But what kind of issues does a person champion as a constitutional
court judge? Susanne Baer has always aimed for consensus,
but also clearly presents her own positions. In her view, the
law is a promise, an anchor. If it were up to her, a consensus would
have to be found on wage discrimination and »atypical employment
contracts« in which minimum quotas and anonymous applications
are given serious consideration. Another idea she regards
as meaningful is a regulation that permanently ties the
allocation of public funds to the aim of gender equality, as well as
a requirement to subject the federal budget to a gender-equality
review – thus bringing »gender budgeting« to Germany.
But what are the chances of success? Susanne Baer has promoted
several projects that can be regarded as successful. In 2008
the German Research Foundation adopted gender-equality standards
that were formulated with her support. They now apply to
the entire German higher education landscape. Thinking about
her new post, she intends to be strict sensitive to bias – as she always
has in her academic career.
So what can Germany’s universities expect from her on the
subject of tuition fees? During her term as vice president responsible
for academic and international aff airs at Humboldt-Universität,
Susanne Baer said that Germany’s higher education system
was fi nancing middle-class children rather than doing justice to
education needs. She was already thinking aloud about tuition
fees back then – not least remembering having benefi ted from a
scholarship herself in Michigan, where the rule is that people who
later work in the private sector have to pay the money back. Those
who work for the common good of society do not. That makes
sense to her – and socially just.