hankyoreh

Dong-eui University’s board of trustees has fired one of its professors, Sin Tae-seop, someone who has worked to oppose the dismissal of KBS President Jung Yun-joo. The biting teeth of power in the pursuit of control of broadcasting are scary indeed.

In firing Sin, the university cited three reasons, one of which was that he was a member of the KBS board without the university president’s permission. This is enough to make a cow laugh. Sin was appointed to the board of KBS a year and a half ago. The university made no issue of that fact during all that time. Then President Lee Myung-bak took office and the pressure on Jung to resign from KBS began, at which point the university suddenly told Sin to resign from his position on the KBS board. It threatened him, saying he would be disciplined if he didn’t resign from the board. Is this how a university pursues conscience and truth?

Dong-eui University is just an accomplice in this, however. The principle offender is to be found elsewhere. The university was worried about getting hit with an audit if Sin didn’t resign from the KBS board. University President Kang Chang-seok, in pressuring Sin to resign, is said to have told him that the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology threatened the school with an audit if he didn’t. The ministry denies this, but the story is convincing enough.

Ever since Jung refused to resign as president of KBS, the Lee government has persisted in focusing its efforts on trying to secure an allied majority on the KBS board. Sin naturally became the first target, since he so strongly opposed Jung’s removal.

The new government talks about school autonomy every chance it gets. It has promised not to involve itself in the polices of individual universities in areas like student selection, school operations, and personnel management, and it has even announced a three phase process for giving universities self determination in their respective entrance procedures. Who, then, will believe this government if it does that, only to have things like this happen? Nothing goes farther than infringement and regulation of school rights than aggressive discipline of faculty members. This is not to say, however, that Dong-eui University is immune from responsibility. It bears the responsibility of protecting its professors from threats and pressure from the government. Universities have no reason to exist if they carry out the government’s work in the face of threats like this.

Sin says he is going to take legal action and will file a lawsuit to be reinstated, and rightly he should. This case is not, however, just a personal matter for Sin. Since it is the government trampling on the universities to seize control of broadcasting, professors and universities need to take a stand. There’s no telling when and where something similar is going to happen. Furthermore, have universities not been demanding greater autonomy and the abolition of regulations? If they are going to lie down prostrate in front of the government, they need to forget about autonomy.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]