By order of the Higher Prosecutor's Office, the police began to investigate the circumstances that led to, as it stands, the illegal election of Dean Slaviša Orlović. The election of Professor Orlović was opposed by a group of current and former female students due to a report of sexual harassment from 2014, broadcastand N1.
A certain number of employees, including the current dean, are also against this election, due to the procedure that, according to them, as well as the interpretation of the university ombudsman, was not in accordance with the prescribed legal and statutory norms.
In June, Professor Orlović informed the public that he was resigning from the position of dean and that he was putting the faculty before everything else. From June 7 until today, he has not made statements or appeared in public.
Will he be dean or not?
Today, as a guest on the show "Iza vesti" on N1, Orlović announced:
"I am the elected dean." I have not deviated from my resignation on June 8 in any detail. Apart from the fact that I was elected by the Scientific and Teaching Council, and I have a responsibility towards them, and my decision can be changed by the council, and the dean has been in that position for nine years, and he has a problem with me not to come on October 1 and look into all the abuses and malfeasance that he does," said Orlović.
But, as he said, he stands by his resignation and adds that he will respect every decision of the Scientific and Teaching Council.
When asked by a journalist what this means, Orlović replied: "It means that we have a session on the 26th and the faculty is sliding towards a state of emergency and acting status." Does the faculty want the government to appoint a dean or do they want to respect their own decisions. That is a question for the Scientific and Teaching Council. I respect the council's decisions, I have nothing to agree on".
According to Orlović, claims that he has changed his attitude are, he says, an attack on his academic integrity.
"Same as allegations of sexual harassment, without any evidence." I haven't changed my position," he repeated.
Female students: Orlović will not pass
After the controversial statements of Professor Orlović, female students of the Faculty of Political Sciences spoke up.
"The appointment of Slavisa Orlović as dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences (FPN) will not go through, because the most problematic thing about his candidacy is the sexual harassment of female students," the students announced today.
In the statement, they remind the Faculty Council and Professor Orlović that he cannot resign from a position to which he was not elected.
"Sexual violence goes beyond daily political arguments and we will not allow the trivialization of a problem that affects a large number of women." This is exactly why we rebelled against the relativization of the problem of sexual violence at our faculty", concluded the FPN students.
Allegations of sexual harassment
Professor Orlovic found himself in the center of attention in 2014 after news broke that a master's student had accused him of sexual harassment. Some media wrote that she claimed that it happened in his office, and after that the issue of his removal from the position of vice dean was raised.
Orlović was subsequently removed from that position, but this was allegedly not stated as a formal reason. He told Politika at the time that he was dismissed from the position of vice dean "due to lack of communication with the dean" and stated that no criminal charges for sexual harassment had ever been filed against him, and that no state authority had noted any harassment on his part.
It is later CINS revealed that new reports for sexual harassment were filed against Slavisa Orlović, which was confirmed by professor Katarina Lončarević, who is also one of the three trustees at the faculty.
