Zofingia: the student association loses its status in Lausanne

ThoseEqual opportunities –Zofingue loses its status as a university association in Lausanne

The Federal Court authorizes the UNIL and the EPFL to withdraw the status of university association at the fraternity, because it excludes women.

Posted today at 5:31 p.m.

This is now active: UNIL and EPFL are authorized to refuse the status of university association in the Vaudoise section of the Zofingue student company, since it admits only male students. This is the Verdict of the Federal Court (TF) who reviewed his jurisprudence. Ten years earlier, this same body had decided in the opposite direction. Let’s get back.

The list of alumni of the Zofingue student company is full of known names, and this is also the case in Vaudish land: Henri Guisan, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, Jean-François Leuba, Philippe Leuba … all “Zofingians”. All men.

As The fairer sex is excludedthe UNIL decided in 2011 not to renew its status as a university association granted in 1994. Without it, the fraternity can neither use the academic premises, nor publish a page on the university website. But, in 2013, the Cantonal court cancels the decision. A year later, the Federal Court rejects the appeal of the university.

Rebelote in 2022. The UNIL again refused to renew the status of university association in the Vaudoise section of Zofingue, following the example of the EPFL which did the same two years earlier. In 2024, the Cantonal Court again watched the UNIL based on the decision of the TF dating from 2014. At the time, the judges attached more importance to freedom of association than to equality of rights. With only forty members in Lausanne, the influence of the network is deemed “relatively low” by the TF.

Advanced jurisprudence

However, the highest judicial body of the country has just approved the decision of the two high schools. According to the judges of Mon-Repos, universities have a duty to ensure equal opportunities in the field of training. The court also stresses that belonging to a university association can have advantages in terms of professional career. According to the TF, this is a significant point, “especially since the objective of equality between men and women in the world of work has not yet been achieved in Switzerland”.

“The judgment is surprising and we have trouble understanding it,” comments Philippe Dal Col, lawyer for the Vaudoise section of the Zofingue Society and former Zofingian.

For the lawyer, the company of Zofingue is the victim of the spirit of time. The court exaggerates, according to him, its importance: “Those who consider our association as misogynist do not know it. Personally, I find it shocking that there is no wage equality in Switzerland, but they will not change anything by attacking the Zofingue student company with taxpayer money. ”

The fact remains that the consequences of the judgment are potentially important. Contacted, the universities of Geneva, Zurich and Berne confirm that they are taking note of the verdict and that they will assess the follow -up.

Associations excluding women could in the future find themselves marginalized in universities. For the historian Lynn Blattmann, a long -standing expert in Swiss student associations, the TF’s decision is more than symbolic: “For the Queen of Swiss Fraternities, this judgment is a historical humiliation. It marks the decline of student associations in Switzerland. “

Based on modern Switzerland

The Zofingue Society considers itself as the cradle of Swiss democracy as well as the association for the Swiss elite. According to historians, it is undeniable that student companies have played a decisive role in the Federal State Foundation. Various political networks were formed within these male associations, which then formed the bases of modern Switzerland.

When creating the federal state, 25% of parliamentarians and two of the seven federal councilors belonged to the company of Zofingue. Even today, three federal advisers-UDC Albert Rösti, centrist Martin Pfister and PLR Karin Keller-Sutter-are members of a student association.

Catholic conservatives, radicals and liberals have their own associations. There are also Jewish student companies. These training courses have marked the country’s political culture with their male legs, explains the historian Lynn Blattmann. “I think that the status of these student companies is one of the reasons why Switzerland has taken so long to obtain the right to vote for women.”

A decreased influence

From 1968, the wind began to turn within the student community. Certain fraternities have opened up to women, such as the Society of Swiss students, a grouping of the old Catholic fraternities.

The Zofingue company still has just over 3,000 members in Switzerland. However, the figures are down. Lynn Blattmann is of the opinion that student societies are losing their political influence: “Known members of Swiss politics all belong to the generation of boomers. In young generations, fraternities no longer play any role to make a career. ”

Difficult to measure to date the effects of the very recent TF verdict. For the lawyer Philippe Dal Col, it is up to the active members of all Switzerland to look at the issue and to discuss it.

Contacted, Zofingue’s student company says that it will “analyze the judgment and then examine to what extent it could have consequences on community life”. Regardless of the fact that students are members or not of university associations, “everyone must have the same possibility of participating in social and political life as well as to evolve in their training and their profession,” said the ridge.

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