In fact, Boğaziçi’s elegant grounds are a crucible of Turkey’s culture wars, home to battles that encapsulate many of the country’s travails — and that mirror disputes in the US and Hungary, where Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán are also seeking to bring elite universities to heel.
The furore at Boğaziçi erupted in 2021 after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan mandated a loyalist to be its rector, and is set to come to a head again this week.
Although Turkey’s highest court ruled last year that such presidential appointments were unconstitutional, it made the decision on procedural grounds and new government legislation, which re-established the right, was rubber-stamped by parliament in June.
This has cleared the way for Erdoğan to again name a new rector when the current appointee’s term expires on Wednesday.
“We call it the authoritarian tool kit for a reason,” said Lisel Hintz, a Turkey specialist at Johns Hopkins University. “Boğaziçi is a target as it is one of Turkey’s most prestigious public universities . . . The government has long sought to weaken and reconfigure institutions they have viewed as obstacles.”