With the latest appointments of faculty and university council members, the Government of Serbia has shown two of its intentions. One is to continue, expand and strengthen the already started process of harnessing the autonomy of the University, as well as the free critical thought resulting from it. And the second intention is that they will not have many scruples in the future, choosing brutal personnel solutions that often resist the principles of the law itself.
According to the Law on Higher Education, the distribution of forces in the councils that have broad powers - for example, to elect and dismiss the dean or rector or adopt financial plans - is such that representatives of the higher education institution make up 55 percent, representatives of the founders, i.e. the Republic, 30 percent and student representatives 15 percent. For this unpaid position, the representatives of the founders are appointed by the Government "from among prominent figures in the fields of science, culture, education, art and economy", as provided by the letter of the law.
In practice, the letter of the law looks like this today. The Secretary General of the Government of Serbia, Novak Nedić, often associated with the Belivuk clan in the media, was elected as a member of the Council of the Faculty of Law even earlier; media adviser to the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, Suzana Vasiljević, was elected to the Council of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts; Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture Maja Gojković is on the Council of the Faculty of Political Sciences (FPN); former minister without portfolio in charge of European integration and SNS official Jadranka Joksimović - she is also in the FPN Council; minister in two mandates during the nineties, former high official of SPS and now member of SNS Branislav Ivković - in the Council of the Faculty of Architecture; of the hard fists of Slobodan Milošević's regime, the FPN Council includes university professor Uroš Šuvaković, a former SPS official and a well-known defender of Milošević's image and work, now a member of the board of directors of the Foundation "For Serbian People and State" founded by SNS, as well as director Ljubiša Ristić, once the founder of the cult KPGT, and later in the nineties the president of JUL, the party of Slobodan Milošević's wife; the director of the Nikola Tesla Museum Ivona Jevtić, previously the secretary of culture in the Belgrade city administration, suspected of misusing the allocation of funds at competitions, is a member of the Council of the Faculty of Philology in which she is together with Dragoslav Bokan, the former commander of the paramilitary formation White Eagles and the leading right-wing supporter of the progressive government; ballet artists and managers Aya Jung and Konstantin Kostyukov from the top of the electoral lists of SNS, are members of the Council of the University of Arts; SPS MP Vladan Zagrađanin, actor of the "Kofer" affair, known for breaking into Radio B92 with the duo Nikačević-Đorđević during the regime of Slobodan Milošević, is a member of the Council of the Faculty of Security. And that is only a fraction of the selected personnel in higher education institutions for which the Government of Serbia finally decided at the session on October 12.
Vladimir Obradović, a professor at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences and MP of the Freedom and Justice Party, was one of the first to react to such decisions by the Government: "In the year when the deans are elected, a large number of prominent members and sympathizers of the ruling parties, signatories of pre-election support for Vučić, were appointed in councils of higher education institutions... With this, the parties in power are roughly and directly involved in the management of higher education institutions, which should be autonomous and separated from political influence. The question is, why is the academic community silent and not responding to it?”
The Network of Academic Solidarity and Engagement (MASA) announced that among the newly appointed members there were persons whose names can only be associated with affairs, criminal charges and public spreading of hatred and intolerance, and that these are persons without credibility and ethical integrity. Such a decision directly renders the University's autonomy meaningless and continues the process of its humiliation, MASA pointed out, calling on colleagues to react and oppose the election of disputed members. Because, as they say, the only criterion for their election was obvious party affiliation or previous public support for the ruling party.
However, the rector of Belgrade University Vladan Đokić, let's recall, was previously the dean of the Faculty of Architecture and appointed as a member of the working group for the professional control of the construction of Belgrade on the water, he stated that he has no objections regarding the election for the University Council, and there is no information for individual faculties.
The students of the Faculty of Philology had information and had already launched a petition against the appointment of Bokan at their faculty: "To us, the younger public, he is known as a person who, from obscure YouTube channels and television with a national frequency such as Happy and Pink, has been spreading the word for years hatred and promotes bigotry, intolerance and violence."
The students proposed to the professors of the Faculty of Philology to express their strong disagreement with the decision of the Government of Serbia and to take measures to withdraw from that decision.
The opposition pro-European parties raised their voice considerably. "Chavinists, thugs and thugs of Slobodan Milošević were appointed to the faculty councils," announced the Democratic Party.
The president of the Youth Movement of Free Citizens, Jelena Banjac, said in a written statement that the appointment of Dragoslav Bokan and Novak Nedić is not in accordance with the law and that they "represent the darkest face of this violent regime and must not decide on anything related to education."
The Serbia Center Party (SRCE) says in its statement: "From the beginning of the multi-party system, the FPN has been an impregnable fortress for those whose politics of the 90s are the legacy of the SNS today... This regime knows that the diplomas of their joint faculties are worthless. That's why they set out to conquer what never belonged to them."
However, even two weeks after the election of new members, the academic community is still missing - except for very rare individuals, professors who are otherwise politically active and work within parties, or in an even smaller number, those who simply decided to "barely ” defend the reputation of the University.
Faculty of Philology professor Bojan Đorđević stepped forward indignantly and in an author's article in "Danas" asked an open question regarding the appointment of Bokan: "Who is that professor of my Faculty of Philology who can feel such an attack on tradition?... No big words are needed here. Concrete steps are needed. It is necessary that none of the professors of the Faculty of Philology, whom we, their colleagues and associates, have chosen as members of the Council, agree to this humiliation."
FPN professor and member of parliament (Green-Left Front, We're not drowning Belgrade) Đorđe Pavićević, looking for the reasons for such government appointments, reminded the "Vremena" portal of the events of two or three years ago: "During the pandemic, new members of the BU Council were appointed and faculties and there were also scandalous, humiliating and illegal solutions, which caused concern and unrest in some faculties. Thus, for the first time in the history of the University of Belgrade, the BU Council overrode the Senate during the election of the rector in 2021."
Let us remind you that the previous rector Ivanka Popović lost the race to the current rector Vladan Đokić, apparently punished for advocating that the doctorate of Finance Minister Siniša Malog be finally annulled because it was found to be plagiarism.
"New solutions, again before the elections at the University", continues Pavićević, "are the re-appointment of eligible members, the replacement of some inactive members of the Council, and in some cases the composition with politically strong and loyal members has been strengthened, such as BU and those faculties that are not 'on the line' and from which critical voices are heard would not receive inappropriate leadership."
The silence of the academic community gives an increasingly ominous echo, even though it is already clear that the fact that all the earlier government appointments of political henchmen and powerful men to the ranks of the faculty was countermeasured by only one professor, director Janko Baljak, has returned like a boomerang. We should always remember how he resigned from the governing bodies of the University of Arts in 2021 at the moment when Vučić's media advisor Suzana Vasiljević was appointed to the FDU Council.
"I consider her election to be a continuation of the disastrous disciplining of cultural institutions in the last decade," Baljak explained at the time. "The election of Suzana Vasiljević to the most important body of the FDU is an affirmation of censorship and self-censorship in the education of future generations of artists."
Baljak did not receive wider support from the academic community. There is no room for future surprises. The professors are silent, it seems, as never before. Students as always. While rare exceptions among both only confirm this creepy rule.
