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Chulalongkorn University this past weekend controversially dismissed the head of its student government for allowing pro-democracy activists to speak to new intakes at the school.
“I was ousted by a coup from the university’s administrators,” Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal told Thai Enquirer on Monday.
“They have been looking for a reason to get rid of me for some time now.”
The university’s administration said in a statement that they have deducted the merit points of Netiwit and Pitchakorn Roeksomphong, first vice president of the student government, for not informing them that pro-democracy activists will be speaking to freshmen during an orientation on July 20, 2021.
The three activists include prominent student protest leaders Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak, and Panusaya “Rung” Sithijirawattanakul along with Professor Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an activist in-exile who joined the meeting via a teleconference.
The deduction meant Netiwit, a fourth-year student of Political Science, no longer met the requirement to be the president of the student government and he will have to leave his post this week.
Every student at the university has 100 merit points at the start and if a student loses more than 20 points, he or she will not be qualified to be the student president. Netiwit’s term was supposed to end in June.
The university said that apart from failing to inform the university about the speakers, Parit also used profanity during his speech and he had encouraged the freshmen to “give the finger” to the university’s administrators.
They said such action could bring the university into disrepute.
Netiwit said Parit was trying to tell the students that the school belongs to them, not the administrators who failed to help their students to cope with added stress from educational disruption caused by the Covid pandemic.
He said at least eight students have committed suicide over the past two years and around 30 students could be dismissed after failing to cope or having difficulties with online learning.
This was not the first time that the university controversially intervened with its student bodies as they also removed Netiwit and his friends from the student council in 2017 for protesting against the university’s initiation ceremony.
Netiwit took the case to the Administrative Court before the court reversed the university’s decision which allowed him to compete for the head of the student government which he won by more than 10,000 votes in March 2021.
He received 10,324 votes out of 14,691 voters.
The Executive Committee of Student Government of Chulalongkorn University on Sunday released a statement to express their disagreement with the university’s decision against Netiwit.
“The committee would like to express objection to the deduction of merit points as the orientation activity was organised with the intention to raise freshmen’s awareness of their own rights and liberty to encourage them to scrutinise the university’s administrative board,” they said.
“These are the expression of academic freedom for students which is permissible in accordance with the constitution.”
Chaturon Chaisang, a former deputy prime minister and minister of education, wrote on his social media page on Sunday that the university’s reason to dismiss Netiwit was invalid and the punishment was disproportional.
“If we look at it based on democratic principles, the university’s administrators should not have the power to remove the president of the student government because he was elected by the students,” he wrote.
“If the administrators of one of the leading universities in the country can violate the power of a student body whenever they want, we have to ask the question of what kind of people do Thai universities want to produce and how can these universities be a part of the development of a democratic society and the promotion and protection of academic freedoms if they are doing this?”
Nevertheless, Netiwit said he will appeal their decision so he can rerun for the position in June but he believes that the appeal process will take some time and there will not be enough time before the next election.
“By then it’ll already be too late,” he said.
He said his friends, who are also pro-democracy activists like him, will be running for the position so nothing much will change in terms of the progressive movement within the university.
“So if they get rid of me, that’s fine, the next could be even more progressive. It’s interesting, and symbolic of the pro-democracy movement, because Chulalongkorn is supposedly the most conservative university in the country. So it says a lot about the wider struggle,” he said.
Additional report by Caleb Quinley
