ASEEES Statement concerning the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (Shaninka)

Published July 20, 2018

 

The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) expresses its great disappointment with the decision of June 20 of Rosobrnadzor, the Russian Federal Service for the Supervision of Education and Science, to withdraw accreditation from one of the country’s most highly regarded universities, the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. Widely known as the “Shaninka,” after its founder, renowned sociologist Teodor Shanin, the School currently enrolls 300 students and boasts an excellent faculty, a number of whom can be counted among ASEEES members.

While the school will continue to teach and confer degrees, the government’s decision deprives students of state recognition of those degrees, as well as the opportunity to defer military service.

Coming on the heels of Rosobrnadzor’s even more stunning decision to entirely withdraw the license from another of the country’s leading private universities, the European University of St. Petersburg, about which ASEEES has written previously, we see a new pattern of restriction of freedom of thought and expression that threatens the country’s rich tradition of independent scholarship and science.

ASEEES joins in an earlier statement released by our British counterpart, BASEEES, and urges the repeal of this tremendously damaging move by Rosobrnadzor, for the School itself, and for Russian higher education overall.

 

ASEEES Executive Committee & ASEEES Committee on Academic Freedom and Advocacy