“Free University” considered undesirable – Picture of the Day – Kommersant
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The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation has declared “Free University” undesirable – an Internet university opened by former HSE teachers and with 80 training courses. In the supervisory department, he was considered a popularizer of extremist organizations, anti-Russian literature and a university that imposes on students an “ultra-liberal model of European democracy.” Representatives of the Free University believe that the decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office deprives students of “quality education and social elevators”, but admit that the organization will not be able to work in its current form.
The recognition of the Latvian non-governmental organization Free University as undesirable in the Russian Federation was announced by press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office. The department’s communiqué blames the university for promoting extremist organizations, literature with a “pronounced anti-Russian character”, in which “under the pretext of developing democratic institutions, the need to change the foundations of the constitutional order is actually substantiated.” The “ultra-liberal model of European democracy” is imposed on students, and the leadership of the organization “includes persons who question the territorial integrity of the Russian state.”
The “Free University” will be declared undesirable after being entered into the appropriate register by the Ministry of Justice: as a rule, this takes about two weeks.
The Free University is a “community of teachers and students” that has worked on methods for effective online teaching. Launched in the summer of 2020 by teachers from the Higher School of Economics, with whom the university did not renew the contract. We are talking about the former member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, lawyer Elena Lukyanova, philologist Gasan Huseynov, philosophers Yulia Gorbatova and Viktor Gorbatov, journalist Kirill Martynov (recognized as a foreign agent). In 2021, the Free University NGO (biedriba Briva Universitate) was registered in Latvia – its activities were recognized as undesirable.
The website of the Free University stated (it was unavailable yesterday) that the goal of the university is to get rid of teachers from “administrative diktat”, and among the reasons for its creation there are interference of the authorities in the teaching of the humanities, cases of layoffs of disloyal employees and bureaucratization of classical education.
The Free University has 180 teachers who teach 80 courses; At the same time, the university has, for example, a school of exact sciences, a department of philosophy and religious studies, a department of political science and law, a media school, and a school of management and business. Paid are the courses of the school of business management; in general, the organization exists on donations.
Andronik Arutyunov, a lecturer at the Free University, considered the wording about the “ultra-liberal model of democracy” to be “propaganda”. According to him, about 2,000 students are currently studying at the Free University, mostly from Russian provinces, “where there is no access to a normal education.”
“Apparently, the prosecutors believe that students do not need the theory of probability or the work of Roland Barthes, but only need to know how to maintain an oil pipe,” said the teacher, who believed that the decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office “will deprive young people of social elevators.”
At the same time, Mr. Arutyunov admits that “it is impossible for the university to work in its current form,” and the founders of the Internet university will consult with lawyers about further actions. “Perhaps the courses of Russian professors will be given to colleagues abroad. In one form or another, the university will continue to exist,” he promised.
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