Early [last Monday] morning, some 15 people occupied the [University of Athens] computer center, holding hostage the email accounts of faculty members, students and administrative personnel, including those of the University of Athens hospitals. With a few exceptions, nobody has condemned what has happened, and no university officials have dared appeal to the authorities, for fear of retaliation. Physical violence and bullying is so common in Greek universities and across Greece that almost nobody dares react anymore.
This blog has covered – as much as it can bear to – the fate of universities in Greece [scroll down]. Aristides Hatzis, a professor at the University of Athens, explains the typically vicious response to the prospect of an electronic vote on university reform.
November 20th, 2012 at 9:51PM
Any citizen who believes the academy is a place of scholarly repose may be very much mistaken.
The goon squad tactics I’ve been made aware of at a local college include aggressive, orchestrated shunning of profs who’ve somehow run afoul of someone, “over-observation” in the classroom to undermine confidence and authority, gratuitous career sabotage, etc., up the food chain to civil and criminal misconduct, such as assault and battery, malicious falsification of documents, perjury (probably), and more.