On his first day in office as the rector of one of Turkey’s most prestigious universities, Melih Bulu received a literal cold shoulder. The faculty greeted their new boss by contemptuously turning their backs to the rectorate building — just as students of the same university had done four years ago. The target then was Bulu’s predecessor, Mehmed Ozkan, who had also been handpicked as the rector of prestigious Bogazici University by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. This time was worse as Ozkan had been a member of Bogazici faculty, but Bulu is an outsider whose academic credentials are tarnished with allegations of plagiarism.

As students from Bogazici and other universities continued protesting around the campus and online, Erdogan rallied to Bulu's defense. “The Board of Higher Education has provided me with nine names and I have selected Bulu based on his academic qualifications,” the president said on Friday. “I am certain that he will be very successful.”

Asked about student protests at the university, with arrests and images of gates closed with handcuffs to keep students out, Erdogan repeated his refrain from similar cases: “These are not students, these are terrorists.”

On Sunday, presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin maintained that "questioning the appointment would be questioning presidential powers" and accused the opposition of politicizing a simple appointment that was entirely within the rights of the president. The next day, a lawyer took up the matter in court, arguing that the move was unconstitutional.