J OSE Luis Corcuera was an excellent Minister of the Interior who resigned for having compromised his word regarding the content of the citizen security law that his ministry drew up, and who was disqualified because he came from the working world -in 1963 he was already an apprentice in Altos Hornos de Vizcaya- and from there he rose in trade unionism. In 1976 he left his position as an electrician and dedicated himself exclusively to the UGT. The criticism was for not having been a university student, from which it follows that if he had been in possession of a degree or an engineering degree, he would have been treated more kindly. This example can help understand the reasons why some politicians decided to inflate their resumes; the objective was to put on a shield to protect himself from acid criticism,
If any of those who have swollen their academic record had been a doctor, they would not have had the slightest problem in increasing their qualification by changing the title of graduate in medicine for that of doctor. Nobody would have messed with them because in Spain it is allowed to call those who have a degree a doctor only when that degree is in medicine. The majority of Spanish doctors know that they are only licensed, but I do not know any that does not put the name of doctor on the plate in the pocket of their coat or on the front of their door. And what
is not important either if you have the certainty that this doctor practices his profession because he cleanly obtained his degree and developed the MIR according to what was required by the current program. I know excellent doctors who never did a doctorate.
Similarly, no one is surprised that one of the most watched programs on Spanish television bears the pompous and pretentious title of master chef. We all know that what is taught by three chefs is not a master’s degree in the university sense of the term, but I don’t think it matters too much that those who win that contest go home with that degree in their pocket.
I understand, therefore, that the important thing is not what each one wants to be called, but to know that you cannot boast of more merits than those that you have been able to earn cleanly and honestly based on the norms and rules that govern in each activity. In short, one cannot summon the press to show them a record where the rector of such a university certifies that you are a naval engineer if you know that you have never set foot in the classrooms of that School. What is punished is not the title, but falsehood, deception and collusion.
And as always happens, the one who cheats pays, leaving his accomplices free. Those who heard the phrase “my disciples” from the mouth of the director of Cristina Cifuentes’ failed master’s degree will have remembered the feudal character that is still in force in the Spanish university and will already know why those “disciples” signed fallow what the “master “. That does not happen in any other administrative body where there are career officials who have approved their oppositions based on their merits and abilities. No boss would dare to ask an official who is below him in the civil service organization to sign a document endorsing an illegality or falsehood. It only happens in those places where there are “disciples” whose professional career is in the hands of the feudal master on duty. Cifuentes is guilty. And, also, the “master”, his “disciples” and the rector who endorsed and protected them. They all cheated because they knew they had the power to do so and because, owners of lives and estates, they felt that they could force people who hold the keys that open or close the doors of their academic future to commit crimes.
There is no good that evil does not come. The lifting of the university petticoats may be the opportunity for Spanish society to force its parliamentary representatives to draft laws that eliminate medieval feudalism and convert university centers into modern teaching and research institutions, where the obscurantism that It has been accompanying university life for almost a millennium. Academic freedom must continue to be defended as an inviolable good, but that freedom must not protect the so-called university autonomy which, being something different, grants its governing bodies irresponsible power in the literal sense of the term.
