Police on campus

Students and police clash in 2008, Photo by Nasser Nuri/Reuters

Last week, an Egyptian court ruled that the long-standing presence of Egyptian police on university campuses here is illegal and unconstitutional. The ruling has been widely discussed here, with government official promising they will implement it but not giving the most reassuring statements about how that will be done; students and faculty rallying around the ruling and demanding its implementations; and commentator and analysts wondering how the government will get around the ruling and continue to interfere with and monitor campuses. The presence of the police is so endemic and entrenched at universities here (they interfere in appointments, visitors, travel to conferences, student elections, extra-curricular activities) that it's hard to imagine how the state could remove Ministry of Interior forces without losing control to an unadmissible (for it) degree. For more about the ruling and the situation at Egyptian universities this Fall, you can take a look at an article I just wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education.