President Pavel names 93 new professors

President Petr Pavel named 93 new professors at a ceremony at Prague’s Carolinum on Wednesday. Among the academics who received the title were art historian Jiří Fajt and physicist Ivan Ošťádal, whom Pavel’s predecessor Miloš Zeman refused to appoint, citing what he said were serious transgressions in their pasts.

In 2021, a court ruled that the non-appointment of Ošťádal and Fajt as professors was not in accordance with the law. Mr. Zeman then failed in his appeals to the Supreme Administrative Court. Both academics have been waiting eight years to be made a professor.