Before the sun rose over Thessaloniki on Wednesday, Stergios Grigoriou and his fellow students surrounded the site of the main university in the Greek metropolis and barricaded all entrances.
The act of defiance was not isolated. In a country where protest policy prevails, students have a mission: to overturn a bill that, in the name of bringing order to undisciplined universities, provides for the creation of disciplinary councils and a special police force on campus. “Our demand is simple. The educational bill has to be withdrawn, ”said Grigoriou. “It is a repressive law that, far from meeting our needs, only meets the false needs of a few conservatives.”
In the third year of the business administration course, the 20-year-old admits that he now spends more time “on the front line” than he is late. But he is far from alone. Across the country, there are growing student protests against the legislation, which is seen as a setback of rights gained since the restoration of democracy in 1974.
With parliamentarians due to vote on the bill on Thursday night, after three days of heated debate, protesters clashed with the riot police in Athens and Thessaloniki as the opposition opposed the center-right government’s attempt to reform the sector was intensifying.
Within the 300-seat Chamber, tensions were also high, as the main opposition leader, Alexiza Tsipras of Syriza, criticized the government for using the pandemic to pass unacceptable laws. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis insisted that it was not the police, but the democracy that would be installed in the colleges. “The objective is to return public universities to their natural occupants,” he told the Chamber.
One of the smallest countries in Europe, Greece has 24 state universities and more than 600,000 students, reflecting how higher education is seen as a lever for social mobility. But chaos also abounds. Stories of illegality on Greek campuses – especially in Athens – are legion, attributed in part to a law that long ago prohibited the police from entering the university grounds, in memory of the dead in 1973 when the colonel regime violently crushed an uprising at the Polytechnic of Athens.
Although revoked by Mitsotakis weeks after taking office in 2019, the legacy of the so-called asylum law continues. In urban centers, campuses formerly known as no-go zones for the police have become synonymous with crime and decay. Drug trafficking, sexual assault and the presence of anarchists and other anti-establishment groups on university grounds have been accused of driving more and more Greeks to seek higher education abroad.
“We heard about outrageous security breaches, even teachers being attacked in classrooms, and vandalism and theft,” said Professor Kevin Featherstone, who teaches contemporary Greek studies at the London School of Economics. “Asylum rights born at a different time have been grossly abused to the detriment of everyone.”
Criticism of the project focused on plans for an unarmed police force. With the power to arrest students perceived to be involved in criminal activities, the corps of 1,030 specially trained men and women would be able to call the riot police, if necessary. For left-wing parties that considered the asylum law to be sacrosanct – and are aware of the role of campuses as recruitment sites – the prospect of any police presence comes dangerously close to erasing freedom of expression.
“No country in the world has police in universities,” said Syriza education spokesman Nikos Filis, noting that the entire academic community and even the police were against the proposals. “This is the government taking its law and order agenda to new heights. Why not reinstate the security guards who were fired when Greece signed up [EU-mandated] austerity during the economic crisis? A police force will simply add fuel to the fire. “
For Niki Kerameus, Athens education minister and architect of the reforms, the legislation far exceeds the question of police surveillance limited to only “four or five” universities, she says, where the security problem is acute. “It is not a horizontal measurement and over time the body can even be removed if there is no need,” she told the Guardian. “That said, it is simply not true to say that elsewhere the police do not intervene when criminal incidents occur on campuses, because they do.”
At 40, the Harvard-trained lawyer is among the youngest government ministers and dreams of making Greece an educational center in southeastern Europe. To get there, she says, the country finally needs to deal with the perennial problems that affect higher education. “Our higher education system has tremendous potential, proven by the fact that many of our graduates are going to study at the best universities abroad,” she said. “We just need to unlock that potential. And to do that, we need to take certain actions. “
At first, the bill deals with the phenomenon of “eternal students” – 40% of Greek undergraduate students continue their studies until middle age – as well as with the evaluation of the faculty and the raising of admission standards at the university .
“It is 2021,” said the minister, insisting that disciplinary committees were necessary because the rules had never been applied. “We have to deal with issues and act where there is an offense, be it plagiarism or destruction of university property. It is pure common sense and highly expected. It is not right or left. It is about what is best for our universities and future generations. “
Under the supervision of Kerameus, undergraduate English courses began to be offered as part of an effort to attract foreign students and form partnerships with leading universities in the United States and elsewhere. But this also drew criticism from the opposition, which accuses the government of being obstinate in privatizing higher education at the expense of the public nature of universities.
Not all students are opposed. Katerina Tsitomenea, a law student at the University of Athens, agrees that the changes should have already occurred. “There are some weird guys on campus and you don’t always feel safe,” she said. “I have friends who study law in the UK and I am always surprised by the difference in the environment at the universities there.”
For Featherstone, who served on the Greek National Research and Technology Council as its first foreign member, the furor amounts to a cultural war over how Greece should develop.
“What we are seeing is part of a long-term conflict between the two sides of Greek society. One has an international aspect, seeks meritocracy, has liberal values and aspires for Greece to compete in the world ”, he said. “The other is insular, fearful, not meritocratic, discards excellence and wants academic institutions to operate with very different values. It is a complete cultural war. “