Until March, Sedat Laciner led Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University (COMU), one of Turkey’s largest state institutions of higher learning, with more than 35,000 students. Laciner, a professor of international relations with a doctorate from King’s College, London, is also a public figure, frequently writing op-eds and appearing on political TV talk shows. He once was sympathetic to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, but in the past two years had grown critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarianism. This led some pro-Erdogan commentators to suggest that Laciner might be a “parallel,” in other words affiliated with the much-despised Gulenist movement headed by Fethullah Gulen. Others noted that he had a photo of former President Abdullah Gul in his room, not one of Erdogan, allegedly making his politics suspicious.

The presidents of Turkish universities are called rectors and are elected every four years. The renewal process is quite interesting, surprising Westerners used to thinking of universities as autonomous institutions. In Turkey, the academics at universities select candidates for rectorates from among themselves, but the results of these mini-elections are not decisive. According to the centralization-obsessed Turkish Constitution, all Turkish universities are controlled by the Higher Education Board, which itself is controlled by the country's president, who has the ultimate authority to appoint the rectors of state universities.

Thus, the new rector of COMU was chosen by none other than Erdogan. Prior to the appointment, COMU scholars had held a mini-election in late February, giving Laciner the highest number of votes, 237 out of 670. Yet Erdogan, using his constitutional authority, shortly thereafter appointed a different professor, Yucel Acer, as rector, although Acer had received only 180 votes in the mini-election. After assuming office, Acer proudly declared to the pro-AKP press that he would initiate a "cleansing” of the “parallels" at the university.

Laciner soon realized that he had lost more than his rectorate. The computer in his office was confiscated by order of Acer. He was also transferred to a much smaller campus of the university 100 kilometers (62 miles) away. The new rector’s henchmen examined CCTV footage from cameras near Laciner's university-sponsored residence, looking for “crimes.” Not just Laciner but his entire former team came in for a share of the new administration’s wrath. They too will all soon be sent to remote districts. “It is kind of a witch hunt at COMU,” Laciner said to the press.