Yeungnam University`s dubious cancellation of lawmaker`s lecture

There are rampant gossips over the sudden cancellation of a lecture by Yoo Seung-min, a lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri Party, at Yeungnam University. The university`s newspaper and broadcasting unit said Friday that it had planned to hold Yoo`s "talk concert" but cancelled it because of scheduling issues. Considering the special relationship between President Park Geun-hye and Yeungnam University, however, one would wonder whether there was a real reason for the cancellation.

Yeungnam University, which was created by a merger between Cheonggu University and Daegu University during the presidency of Park Chung-hee, the incumbent president`s late father, is a leading private institution of higher education in North Gyeongsang Province. President Park Geun-hye was chairwoman of the foundation running the university from April to November 1980, before serving as a board director of the foundation for eight years. Choi Oe-chool, a promoter of the senior Park`s New Community Movement and a hidden man of influence in the early days of the Park Geun-hye administration, is vice president of the university. Such close relationship leads to the inference that the university forced the organizers to cancel the lecture after belatedly learning about it.

During the clash between President Park and her Saenuri Party in July over a bill calling for strengthening the National Assembly`s authority, she criticized Yoo for engaging in "politics of betrayal." Yoo, the then Saenuri floor leader who reached an agreement with the main opposition party against the president`s will, stepped down from the position, saying he tried to protect the supreme constitutional value of Korea as a democratic republic – an indirect criticism of Park. Many people speculate that when President Park visited Daegu in September, she refused to invite Saenuri lawmakers from the city because of the tensions. Currently in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province, a matter of top political interest is whether Yoo and other Saenuri lawmakers close to him will be able to win the party`s nomination and get elected in the April 2016 parliamentary elections.

Whatever happens in the political realm, universities should guarantee freedom of expression and study make political considerations for or against outside lecturers. There are also suspicions about the announcement that Yoo`s lecture at Kyungpook National University originally scheduled for November 12 was postponed for his "personal reasons."