POLITICS AND HIGHER EDUCATION
How a Promising Turkish College Becomes Victim of Political Vendetta: The Tragedy of Sehir University
President Erdogan graced the opening of Istanbul Sehir University in 2010; ten years later, he ordered its shutdown. A college fell victim to palace intrigue and political revenge.
Prologue
On October 5, 2010, President Abdullah Gul, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and countless other bigwigs of the Turkish government all graced the inauguration ceremony of a newfound university in Istanbul’s Asian side. This high-profile attendance was a testament to the privileged status of a university — Istanbul Sehir University — as well as their expectations from it: raising a new generation of intellectuals with a conservative worldview.
I was there on that day. I was a new master student as the school simultaneously accepted its first undergraduate and graduate students that semester. We were bundled together with other MA candidates at a small place while media members and a wide array of academic figures crammed into a tiny space reserved for them due to security and protocol reasons…
