The dismissal of economist Miroslav Ševčík from the post of dean of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Economics will be discussed by its academic senate on Wednesday. The rector of the university, Petr Dvořák, is requesting his resignation. She reproaches Ševčík for his behavior in public, most recently participating in an anti-government demonstration and attempting to tear down the Ukrainian flag. However, the Senate, made up of people close to Ševčík, is still behind the dean.
The anti-government demonstration on March 11 on Wenceslas Square ended when several hundred people tried to break into the building of the National Museum and tear down the Ukrainian flag from it. They were stopped by the police. Miroslav Ševčík was among them. He later defended himself by saying that he was just passing by and helping an injured person in the crowd.
The behavior of the dean of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Economics prompted Rector Petr Dvořák to call on Ševčík to resign. The dean refused. Dvořák has long been bothered by his inappropriate behavior in public. Last September, for example, Ševčík spoke from the podium at an anti-government and pro-Russian demonstration organized by Ladislav Vrabel, who is accused of spreading an alarmist message.
“The rector does not want to deny docent Ševčík’s right to free expression and assembly. As the top representative of a public university, however, the dean must always consider the impact of his speeches on the school,” VŠE spokeswoman Věra Koukalová said. According to Dvořák, Ševčík is damaging the good reputation of the largest economic university in the Czech Republic.
The rector therefore called on the academic senate of the Faculty of Economics to vote on Ševčík’s dismissal. The senators will decide on Wednesday before noon. According to developments so far, however, it can be assumed that he will retain his deanship. The 64-year-old economist has a strong position at the school. Already last week, the senate decided that it does not agree with his dismissal. Of the nine members, six were against, one abstained and only two raised their hands in favor.
Only one senator, student Petra Hrabová, speaks openly against Ševčík. It bothers her that some teachers and sponsors are leaving the faculty under his leadership. She became a member of the faculty senate only after Ševčík was unanimously elected to the position by the senators a year ago.
Ševčík has been building a strong position at VŠE since the 1990s. The current senate is composed mainly of loyal people who have various ties to the dean. For example, the head of the law department, Jan Vondráček, represented Ševčík in personal lawsuits. Most recently, for the trademark of the Memorial Josef Odložil athletics race, which Ševčík organized until his former friend Pavel Šourek registered it.
For another member of the academic senate, student Marko Koten, Ševčík supervised a bachelor’s thesis on Russia’s position in the global economy. In the 2020 regional elections, Koten donated 100 crowns to the Trikolor party, which Ševčík helps as an economic expert. Koten is also a co-author of a study entitled “Evaluation of the effectiveness of widespread restrictive government measures in response to the covid-19 pandemic in the Czech Republic”, which criticized anti-covid measures in March 2021. Even Ševčík publicly disagreed with them.
The chairman of the senate is the head of the philosophy department, Ján Pavlík. In 2014, Ševčíka defended himself when the dean illegally used a blue beacon while driving in order to get out of the convoy faster. “Actually, he only drove a little along the lane reserved for rescuers. It was about 300 meters before he left the highway,” he said at the time. Six years ago, he and Ševčík founded the Liberal Academy with the aim of promoting the ideas of classical liberalism.
The historian Martin Kovář, who had to leave the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in 2018 due to plagiarism, is also a member of the senate. He found a new position at the University of Economics, where he had previously been a guest lecturer. Ševčík compared his expulsion from the oldest Central European university to the political processes of the harsh communist regime in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s.
The last three senators are Karel Zeman, Zdenka Vostrovská and Jaroslav Macháček. From 2006 to 2007, Zeman held the position of deputy at the Ministry of Finance. At that time, Ševčík became a member of the supervisory board of Czech Airlines, which fell under this ministry.
Vostrovská sits with Ševčík on the three-member commission of the faculty expert institute, Macháček works at the department of regional studies. He defended the current dean in 2012, when a group of employees of the Department of Institutional Economics launched a petition against him due to insufficient transparency. At the time, Ševčík dismissed the authorized head of the department, David Lipka, who, according to him, had falsely informed about the payment of bonuses. According to the authors of the petition, it was an unfounded attack from Ševčík’s side.
All members of the academic senate were contacted by Aktuálně.cz with the question whether they would support the dean on Wednesday or not. Only Hrabová and Mec answered. Hrabová stated that she did not want to comment due to the long-lasting pressure. Mec declined to comment because it would reveal how he will vote.
If the faculty senate continues to keep Ševčík in office, Rector Dvořák will use his authority to propose his dismissal himself. He can do this in the event that the dean does not fulfill his duties or damages the interest of the school. However, the rector needs the approval of the academic senate of the entire VŠE to appeal.
From communist to liberal. Who is Dean Ševčík?
Czech economist and university teacher was born in 1958 in Zlín. He began teaching at the Prague University of Economics in 1983, and a year later joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. At the university, he worked as an assistant professor at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. After November 1989 and the end of the communist regime, he became a liberal economist who received a lot of space in the media. He founded the Liberal Institute in 1989. He was first elected to the head of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Economics in 2010. He was dean until 2018, and was re-elected by the faculty’s academic senate last year. In recent years, he has been a vocal critic of the European Union, he disagreed with the covid measures, he appeared at several demonstrations against the government of Petr Fiala from the ODS. He sympathizes with the Tricolor movement and is its economic expert. In the past, he got into a dispute with Olympic champion in gymnastics Věra Čáslavská. Her husband, the athlete Josef Odložil, was Ševčík’s uncle. Odložil died in 1993 at a discotheque after a fight with his son Martin. Ševčík blamed him for the death of his uncle, Čáslavská did not agree with his version. To this day, it is not clear which of them was right.
Video: Dean Ševčík has been damaging the name of our school for a long time, students protested (March 15, 2023)
Students of the University of Economics in Prague demanded the resignation of dean Miroslav Ševčík, who was supported by several individuals. Aktuálně.cz presents a sample of the meeting. | Video: Radek Bartoníček
