Education minister pledges to fight “totalitarian dictatorship of left-liberal views” in Poland

Poland’s new education minister has promised to fight the “dictatorship of left-liberal views” that he says “have dominated higher education” and begun to “penetrate schools” as well.

Przemysław Czarnek, an MP from the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, was this week sworn in as the education and science minister. His appointment had been delayed by two weeks as he tested positive for coronavirus shortly after being nominated for the position.

Czarnek’s appointment has already drawn controversy due to his outspoken views on “LGBT ideology” and conservative position on the role of women.

In an interview for Nasz Dziennik, a Catholic daily that is part of a media network controlled by influential priest Tadeusz Rydzyk, the new minister outlined his vision for the education system.

“The domination or even dictatorship of left-liberal views – especially those radical in content, even totalitarian – which have dominated higher education in particular, but also penetrate secondary and primary education, cannot be allowed,” said Czarnek.

“What is lacking today is academic freedom,” he continued. “That is what we stand for, and we call for an unequivocal departure from political correctness, which harms universities in Poland.”

Czarnek told the newspaper that there will “soon be new legislation” to “eliminate shortcomings” in the higher-education system. He says that he wants this to include “support for the humanities to free them from political correctness [and] left-liberal trends”.

Czarnek’s predecessor as minister in charge of universities, Jarosław Gowin, earlier this year promised a law to “defend free speech” and prevent “ideological censorship” in colleges after a lecturer quit in protest over accusations she promoted homophobic and antisemitic views. However, no such legislation has since been introduced to parliament.

Another minister recently proposed a ban on “promoting LGBT ideology” and the teaching of gender studies in Polish schools and universities, saying that they “morally corrupt” young people.

One of Czarnek’s first actions as minister was to fire the head of the department responsible for overseeing schools’ core curriculum and textbooks, and he confirmed to Nasz Dziennik that he plans to make changes in this area.

“Textbooks are one of the biggest shortcomings in education today and a fresh look is needed,” Czarnek told the newspaper. In a separate interview for Polskie Radio, he said that history, social studies and Polish language books were in the greatest need of revision.

“The most important thing is for schools to teach who we are, where we come from, and whom we have to thank for living in a free country,” said Czarnek.

Czarnek’s appointment has drawn criticism from the opposition, as well as some students and staff at schools and universities. This morning, protesters hung a banner outside his ministry saying: “Boycott Czarnek: homophobe, xenophobe and fundamentalist.”

“It is a sad day for education [when] a person who openly discriminates against part of society, including young people, calling them an ‘ideology’, becomes minister,” wrote Robert Biedroń, a Polish MEP who stood as the presidential candidate of The Left (Lewica) earlier this year.

Czarnek has been at the forefront of the government-led anti-LGBT campaign over the last two years. He has said that “LGBT ideology comes from the same roots as German Nazism”. Its proponents “are not equal to normal people” and we should “stop listening to this idiocy about human rights or equality”.

The latter comments led to the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), where Czarnek is a professor of law, launching a disciplinary investigation into him. However, the university today announced that it had ended proceedings, claiming that Czarnek’s parliamentary immunity made taking action impossible.

During an academic conference at KUL last year, Czarnek warned of the dangers of telling women that they can have “a career first, and maybe a child later”. “Saying to a woman that she does not have to do what she was called on by God to do” has “dire consequences”, he said.

Czarnek has also attended and spoken at a march organised by the National Radical Camp (ONR), an ultranationalist group descended from an antisemitic interwar organisation of the same name and which today calls for an “ethnically homogeneous” Poland.

Last year, prosecutors began an investigation into ONR’s branch in Lublin – whose march Czarnek had previously attended – for the crime of propagating fascism. It had published a tweet celebrating Belgian Nazi collaborator and wartime SS officer Léon Degrelle as “one of the greatest national revolutionaries”.

Main image credit: Jakub Orzechowski / Agencja Gazeta

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.