Przemysław Czarnek

Przemysław Czarnek (born 11 June 1977) is a Polish politician and academic who was the Polish Minister of Education and Science from 2020 He grew up in Goszczanów in the county of Sieradz in the Łódź Voivodeship of western Poland. His mother was a nurse and his father was a truck driver. He moved to Lublin to live with an uncle at the age of 15.

Academic career Czarnek was appointed as a university professor at KUL on 1 October 2019.

Czarnek was awarded a medal for services rendered to Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) on 28 October 2019. During the award ceremony, activist Anna Dąbrowska held up a banner "Medal for the hater – shame". UMCS staff member Tomasz Kitliński said that the decision to award the medal had not been consulted with university staff and was a surprise and that it took place in a context of decreased democracy within the university.

Political career Czarnek (fifth from the left) at the ceremony of designating voivodes. Czarnek was appointed as the voivode of the Lublin Voivodeship in 2015. He was elected as a member of parliament in the 2019 Polish parliamentary election, resigning from his position as voivode.

Minister of Science and Education January 2022 protest against "Lex Czarnek" (term mentioned on the poster). In early October 2020, Czarnek was announced as the likely new minister of education and science (which was earlier divided into the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, MNISW, and the Ministry of National Education, MEN), Czarnek was formally appointed Minister of Science and Education on 19 October 2020.

The heads of 79 universities in Poland released a joint statement criticizing Czarnek's proposed reforms, arguing that they infringed on the autonomy of the universities and obstructed academic freedom while allowing pseudoscientific views to be taught in universities.

In 2021 the Czarnek's Ministry proposed a reform of the Polish educational system, dubbed in Polish media "Lex Czarnek". It has been described as controversial due to its implied criticism of the teachings on liberal issues such as LGBT rights and sex education, and was vetoed by the President in 2022.

A 2020 international petition signed by more than 170 academics called for an international boycott of Czarnek for his "homophobic, xenophobic and misogynistic views," and hundreds of Polish academics have called for his dismissal on similar grounds. He has denied the claims of the petitions, claiming that he cannot be misogynistic due to his respect for the Virgin Mary and his wife.

Political views Social issues Prior to the 2018 Equality March in Lublin in favor of LGBT rights and the rights of other minorities including the disabled, refugees, ethnic minorities and religious minorities, Czarnek described the march as promoting "perversion, deviance and denaturing" and called for the march to be forbidden by the authorities. Polish Ombudsman Adam Bodnar stated that this can be considered hate speech against participants in the march.

During the 2020 Polish presidential election campaign Czarnek stated in a live television broadcast that "[we] should stop listening to this nonsense about human rights, or any equality. These people [LGBT] are not equal to normal people". According to The Guardian, this was "the most homophobic outburst so far" from a member of the ruling party.

On 3 August 2020, Czarnek stated that it was certain that "LGBT ideology was derived from neo-Marxism and came from the same roots as German Hitlerian national socialism."

On the issue of women's rights, Czarnek has expressed disapproval of women prioritizing career over children, declaring that "Career first, maybe later a child, leads to tragic consequences. If the first child is not born [when the mother is aged] 20–25 years, only at the age of 30, how many children can [the mother] bear? Those are the consequences of telling a woman that she doesn't have to do what she was destined to do by the Lord God."

In 2019, the Peter Tatchell Foundation described Czarnek as "a prominent mouthpiece for far-right prejudice". In 2020, professor of theology criticized Czarnek as "emanating from the extreme right [akin to the] National Radical Camp". According to Balkan Insight, Czarnek spoke at some far-right events.

Historical views In July 2018, a commemoration of the Sahryń massacre, in which hundreds of Ukrainian civilians were killed by the Polish Home Army on 10 March 1944, was held. Czarnek described the commemoration as a "great provocation". Tomasz Kitliński, who commissioned the memorial, refused to comply. Czarnek asked the Institute of National Remembrance to urgently research whether Hunka was wanted for "crimes against the Polish Nation and Poles of Jewish origin".