My first childhood memories include a pair of dark green boots and men in uniform. They were soldiers who had come to pick up our neighbor, a general. I was a child of Turkey's post-1980s coup. I grew up with a fear of any political opinion. “Anarchist” was the monster under our beds those years. My generation was mostly “apolitical.”

These thoughts crossed my mind as I watched the youth protest Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his visit to my alma mater, the Middle East Technical University, back in December 2012. At the time, about 3,600 police protected Erdogan against 300 student protesters. This was six months before the Gezi protests. Erdogan condemned not just the students for “terrorizing” the campus, but also the academics for supporting their right to protest. He suggested these academics should quit academia and join the protesters, since an academic’s job is to “teach students valuable information, like how to use a computer. I condemn all academics who support these protests. We do not need teachers like this.”

During Gezi, Erdogan and Justice and Development Party (AKP) members’ frustration regarding the scope of academic freedom was rekindled. For instance, Bekir Gur, a professor at Yildirim Beyazit University, penned a Dec. 29, 2012, column titled “Is a university a camp or a campus?” Gur wrote, “The young students may not be fully aware of how misguided their protests may be. What is really odd is that some academics also tolerate and even encourage their protests.” Gur concluded, “The special status bestowed upon universities by society is not a right but a privilege, and no one has the right to squander this privilege.”

As I diligently followed the 2012 protest and the governments' reactions, I challenged a colleague to a bet. I suggested that by December 2013 there would be “new and updated” campus regulations affecting both students and academics. The last day of December, my friend reminded me that I owed him a bottle of raki as the Higher Education Board (YOK) only changed the regulations for university students, not academics. It was a close call, since on Jan. 29 the Official Gazette announced that the YOK had updated the 1982 regulations for all university personnel.