Author: Alex Jidarian

Inside Higher Education
By Jack Grove
Feb. 4, 2022
[Incidents raise concerns about academic freedom and political interference.]
The firing of three elected deans from Boğaziçi University, a research
university in Turkey, could signal a renewed attack on institutional
autonomy and freedom of speech in Turkey’s universities, scholars have
warned.
The dismissal of Özlem Berk Albachten, Metin Ercan and Yasemin Bayyurt
by Turkey’s Higher Education Council (YOK) follows a tumultuous year
at the leading Istanbul university, which has been riven by student
protests since a loyalist to the country’s president, Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan, was installed as rector in January 2021.
Since the appointment from outside Boğaziçi of Melih Bulu, a member of
Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party who was accused of
plagiarizing his Ph.D., more than 600 student protesters have been
arrested, and some of them face jail sentences of more than 30 years.
It is believed that the deans were made redundant because of their
support for academics who criticized the appointment of Bulu—who was
later dismissed. Scholars have held a daily vigil to protest against
his successor, Naci Inci, another Erdoğan supporter.
Their dismissal follows a sustained attack on academic freedom within
Turkish universities in the wake of the attempted coup in 2016. In the
years since that putsch, more than 6,000 academics have been sacked,
and about 3,000 schools and universities have been closed over alleged
links to the movement led by exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen.
Several émigré Turkish scholars told Times Higher Education, however,
that the most recent sackings at Boğaziçi were particularly troubling
because they signaled that even mild political dissent would not be
tolerated within universities.
“This latest event makes many educators like me hesitate to return and
work in Turkey,” explained Boğaziçi graduate Elif Balin, now an
assistant professor at San Francisco State University. “This constant
attack on institutional independence, academic freedom, job security
and the right to peaceful protest, along with filling administrative
and academic positions with nonelected and partisan members, makes
many people—especially young people in Turkey—question the quality of
their education and diminishes their hope for the future.”
“It is utterly heartbreaking and depressing to see my alma mater being
attacked, dismantled and slowly torn into pieces,” said Devrim Umut
Aslan, a lecturer at Lund University in Sweden.
Staff and students at Boğaziçi have protested against the latest
dismissals, which Taner Bilgiç, a member of the executive board,
described as seeming “more like a punishment given out to a university
that has been standing up for its academic freedom and institutional
autonomy for the past year.”
Zeynep Gambetti, associate professor in political science at Boğaziçi,
said the removal of three deans who had fought to ensure that
scholarly excellence trumped party loyalty would give the new
president a “free hand in filling the university with below-par
academics and in dismissing or crowding out critical faculty members.”
“Boğaziçi is sure to lose its stature as a center of excellence and
will become, like other universities in Turkey, an institution where
fear and self-censorship are rampant,” he said.
“Things are looking very grim at the moment,” added Olcay Atik, a
chemistry undergraduate, who is facing disciplinary action for
protesting.
“With the removal of the three deans our academicians voted in, we are
expecting a huge number of students to be wrongfully punished with
little to no evidence … as deans get to make the final decisions.”
However, Gürkan Kumbaroğlu, vice rector at Boğaziçi, contested the
version of events put forward by the deans, stating that the
university was “committed wholeheartedly to academic freedom and will
always be in the vanguard of its defense.”
“However, academic freedom is not coterminous with pursuing a
clandestine political agenda” and “with any freedom, there comes
responsibility,” he told Times Higher Education.
The three deans did “not hold their positions by virtue of a popular
democratic mandate,” contended Kumbaroğlu, who said that “by law, they
are appointed to their post on the basis of a contract with the
university by [Turkey’s Higher Education Council],” which decided that
“they had committed serious infractions resulting in clear breaches of
their professional and academic obligations.”
The academics declined to take part in an investigation and did not
submit representations in their defense, he added.
“They have, therefore, not been removed due to a putative assault on
academic freedoms; indeed, we contend there is no evidence for this,”
said Kumbaroğlu. “They have been dismissed due to serious failures on
their part in fulfilling their duties—it is unfortunate and
inaccurate, therefore, that they wish to frame this as a political
grievance.”