Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Why is the HRW Academic Freedom Committee is not watching Italy?

JUST Response Network
Domenico Pacitti replies to your letters
http://www.justresponse.net/pacittiQA3.html
Why is the Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee not watching
Italy?
Dear Domenico,
      I am a student of social sciences at the Università degli Studi
di Messina in Sicily. I do not give my full name to protect myself from
retorsions but hope you can answer my letter. Our Italian newspapers,
but also foreign newspapers, have reported that our university has been
managed by the Mafia for 25 years and we have many problems because
of this. Your article Firm grip of corruption:
http://www.justresponse.net/Firm_grip.html
 about our university
was published when I was still at school but I discovered it when
I came to university in Messina where it is still circulated in
Italian translation. Nevertheless, I am sorry to tell you that your
article didn’t succeed in changing anything here. We took courage
last year when JUST Response appealed for international help and
collaboration to put pressures on Italian universities to change
but still nothing is happening and we heard no more about this appeal.
Do you have more news about this and who exactly were the people
you asked for help?
Giuseppe D., Messina, Italy
Dear Giuseppe,
      I am sorry but hardly surprised to hear that the University of
Messina is still being run by Mafia, but that does not mean we
should give up our efforts to improve the situation. I remember
that article well and have never forgotten those people I met who
showed great courage in speaking out. More Italian students
and academics should follow their example. The appeal you
mention: 
http://www.justresponse.net/Aliaga_appeal.html
did not refer specifically to the University of Messina. It referred to
the well-known case of David Aliaga, a Canadian who was
denied his doctorate degree in circumstances which appeared
to suggest a sort of examiners’ vendetta against him for having
had the audacity to stand up for his rights. But the appeal went
well beyond the Aliaga case in that it spotlighted widespread
endemic corruption within the Italian university system, which
obviously includes the University of Messina, and which covers
a multitude of sins. To take just one example, deep-rooted
corruption in the allocation of tenured university posts has been
vehemently decried by no less than the current head of the Italian
Senate, Marcello Pera:
http://www.justresponse.net/Pera.html
We outlined these and other relevant facts about Italian universities
to the Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee
and we asked their members to lend their support to a worthy
cause and, as you say, collaborate with us in helping to bring
the necessary pressure to bear on Italy.
        On July 23 2003, we sent our letter to each of the following
people at Human Rights Watch together with an introductory note:
Thomas Yeh, Academic Freedom Program Associate
Yolanda Moses, President of the American Association for Higher
Education
Hanna Holborn Gray, Professor at the University of Chicago
Vartan Gregorian, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York
Jonathan Fanton, President Emeritus of the New School for Social
Research
Charles Young, Chancellor Emeritus of UCLA
      As far as I know, Mr Yeh is still Academic Freedom Program
Associate and official spokesman, while the others are all co-chairs
of the HRW Academic Freedom Committee. Over six weeks later,
having received no replies, we wrote to all of them again, politely
inviting them to respond. Well, let's say we are still awaiting their
replies.
Aliaga did eventually manage to get a statement from Mr Yeh, who
apologised “for not being able to assist [...] in this matter”. He
mentioned time and money limitations and concluded: “Unfortunately,
the Italian university system is not currently a research priority for
Academic Freedom work at Human Rights Watch.”
      According to the Human Rights Watch website, the Academic
Freedom Committee’s membership has since at least as far back
as August 17 2000 included the following academics:
Johnetta Cole, Professor, Emory College
Joel Connaroe, President, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Lord Ralf Dahrendorf, Governor, London School of Economics
Ariel Dorfman, Research Professor, Duke University
Thomas Ehrlich, Senior Scholar, The Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching
James O. Freedman, President Emeritus, Dartmouth College
John Kenneth Galbraith, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University
Bernard Harleston, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Alice Stone Ilchman, President Emerita, Sarah Lawrence College
Stanley N. Katz, Professor, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
Nannerl O. Keohane, President, Duke University
Paul LeClerc, President, The New York Public Library
Fang Lizhi, Professor, University of Arizona
Walter E. Massey, President, Morehouse College
Dr. Krzysztof Michalski, Professor, Institute for Human Sciences
Rev. Joseph A. O'Hare, President, Fordham University
L. Jay Oliva, President, New York University
Yuri Orlov, Senior Scientist, Cornell University
Frank H.T. Rhodes, President Emeritus, Cornell University
Neil Rudenstine, President, Harvard University
George Rupp, President, Colombia University
Judith R. Shapiro, President, Barnard College
Michael I. Sovern, Columbia University School of Law
Chang-Lin Tien, NEC Distinguished Professor, University of California at
Berkeley
      So there you have an impressive list of people, some of whom
totally ignored requests for support and collaboration in combating
Italian university corruption,  and some of whom chose to be
members of a committee which ignored such requests.
      At this point some interesting questions arise. Are we to assume
that all of the above academics endorse Mr Yeh’s position that “the
Italian university system is not currently a research priority for
Academic Freedom work at Human Rights Watch”?
What, one wonders, would be required for it to become a priority?
Dropping an H-bomb on the University of Messina perhaps? Why is it
that universities in so-called advanced western democracies appear
to fall beyond the scope of the Committee’s investigations? Could there
be a strong bias here? If so, to what extent is it aconscious bias? Or
to what extent, like Orwell’s self-censorship, is it unconscious?
Could it be that such distinguished academics are actively condoning
the perversion of higher education in Italy because of a natural
instinct to support colleagues who are in the same trade? Or does
their resolute inaction rather reflect an embarrassed awareness
of similar, though perhaps less spectacular, irregularities at their
own, more "respectable" universities? Who decides what Human
Rights Watch should be watching and what it shouldn’t be watching?
And who is watching Human Rights Watch?
      It might well prove rewarding to take these questions seriously
and launch some in-depth investigations.
Domenico Pacitti
Domenico Pacitti is Editor of JUST Response. He has written over 400
articles against corruption in Italy. He has taught philosophy,
linguistics and Chinese at universities in the UK and Italy and
currently teaches English language and American literature at the
University of Pisa
August 28 2004
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 JUST Response Network
Incoraggiante.
L'anno prossimo ricomincio gli studi all'Università e non è bello iniziare
già preparato al peggio.

 wrote in message 
news:cfKZc.242464$5D1.10...@news4.tin.it...

ROTFL! E quando ti laurei a 40 anni? ROTFL 


No.
Ne ho 41 adesso.
Continua pure a ROTFLARE, ora.

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:xUKZc.189677$OR2.8...@news3.tin.it...

Grande! :-)

 wrote in message 
news:xUKZc.189677$OR2.8...@news3.tin.it...

azz allora sei proprio un caso disperato. 

 azz allora sei proprio un caso disperato.
Come mai?