"MAIM" (aka EMMA'S MODEST PROPOSAL) by Red Emma

I do believe I used a portion of this graphic to help illustrate. -RB

[From DISSENT 11, 11/10/98]

[Note: this article was cited in Sampson’s letter to Bauer in December of ’98. According to Sampson, this piece—not written by Bauer—illustrated Bauer’s violence and preoccupation with weaponry. Judge for yourself. Ultimately, several federal judges offered their opinion, and those opinions did not agree with Sampson.]

[Originally entitled:]

EMMA’S MODEST PROPOSAL by Red Emma

Sometimes, buried in my mailbox with President Mathur’s clever homages to corporate education, Red Emma discovers the odd Swiftian news report. First, academic updates from the Republic of Yugoslavia. Then, a modest proposal.

This month’s Lingua Franca reports disturbing developments from Serbia, these at the University of Belgrade. Passage of President Milosevic’s “Law on Universities” allows the government to appoint deans directly, along with members of the governing University Council, as well as “all managerial and supervisory boards at Serbian universities.” Deans and rectors, reports Lingua Franca, are now responsible for all future faculty appointments.

Sound familiar? Read on: “The text of the law was not obtained by the Serbian public until two weeks before parliament was to vote on it. Faculty and administrators at the University of Belgrade cried foul: They had been told that a new law was forthcoming but that it would be devised in collaboration with the universities. Their protests did nothing to halt the law’s progression through parliament and into effect. Approximately fifteen hundred students, professors and concerned citizens briefly took to the streets—only to be violently dispersed by police and para-police troops.”

Before I mention the Brown Act, our board’s favorite law, there’s more. Milosevic’s regime has focused its nationalist reforms on, of all places, the Philosophy Department. (I’m not making this up.) Targeted are faculty who express concern over omnicultural Serbian studies, who sign their names in English, not Cyrillic, and who demonstrated against the regime (and the war) in 1996-1997. Finally, reports Lingua Franca, “This fall, the only literature courses offered are on Slavic writers.”

Let’s see: Government interference in administration. Heavy-handed control of hiring policies. Unannounced meetings. Laws passed absent public input. Attacks on activist Philosophers. Personal vendettas against disloyal faculty. Messing with curriculum. Violating the Brown Act.

I certainly hope Raghu and Glenn are getting this down.

Finally, in the spirit of international cooperation, we at Dissent announce the founding of the Milosevic-Mathur Academic Integrity Matrix. (I couldn’t think of a more annoying business ed sounding type word than “matrix”; besides, it permits a satisfying acronym: MAIM.)

Beginning immediately, I’ll accept nominations here for candidates to an academic exchange program between IVC and University of Belgrade (home of the fighting Ethnic Cleansers!). Forward written nominations to Dissent c/o Red Emma. In the Dissent spirit of irony, efficiency and recycling, all nominations should be completed using the back of any of the recent Presidential Solicitation for Input forms. In fifty words or less, please argue why your nominated IVC administrator, trustee, or college president should be sent to Serbia and one of Milosevic’s henchpeople visit our divisive little campus in their place.

Pinochet update: It is, I am sure, no small comfort to the General, still lying flat on his back in custody, that the last lunch he ate as a free man was with Baroness Margaret Thatcher, who, along with Henry Kissinger, now limits her travels abroad. —RE

Andrew Tonkovich