Forbidden for Professors

Professors Ranko Bugarski, Vladeta Jankovic, Nikola Milosevic, Aleksandar Ilic, Zoran Milutinovic, Djordje Trifunovic, Slobodan Vukobrat, Milivoje Jovanovic, Slavko Vukomanovic and Assistant Professors Srdjan Vujica and Predrag Stanojevic are all on the dean's black list. Assistant Professor Adrijana Masetic, otherwise a member of the Executive Committee of the Philology Faculty Union, announced this news on Monday at the students' protest meeting when a decision had been reached concerning a complete boycott of any continued activity.

THUGS: Just as is the case with the Law and Electrical Engineering Faculties, security guards, who were hired by Dean Marojevic, have been on duty since Monday at the Philology Faculty.

The named professors and associates still have not received written notification, which will be sent to them by mail, but there has already been "severity training" and the first brutal scenes: on the steps, five "thugs" rushed to stop Professor Ljubisa Rajic who attempted to protect his colleague Maja Krstic, an assistant in Germanic Studies. The news that Professor Rajic had been physically attacked spread quickly in academic circles. "No, they didn't attack. When I tried to defend my colleague, who security didn't permit to pass through, about five thugs rushed at me, two grabbed me by the hands. When my colleague Toma Jovanovic publicly and angrily opposed such savage behavior, they let me go, but one young man from the security detail informed me that he personally would worry about me, ' We'll settle all accounts with the ones with the hats after work...'
He promised that he would get order so that I no longer enter the faculty building. Therefore, the news of my death was a little hasty," commented Professor Rajic on the bitter events at the Philology Faculty. In this interview for Vreme, Professor Dr. Ljubisa Rajic, always an agile and lucid conversational partner, doesn't hide his depression.

"It's incredibly hard for people at the faculty, they are wounded, humiliated...We listened, watched on film, we read about assault troops, about their decrees...My parents were imprisoned before the Second World War then they were in a concentration camp...Now, we at the Philology Faculty are experiencing the fact that there are assault troops in front of the doors and inside our faculty. I won't give in to fear. Tomorrow and as always, I will go to the faculty at eight o'clock."

On Monday, the security detail, which has spread itself out on all strategical, important points on the first floor (the main entrance, the stairway, the deans office) restricted freedom of movement to Professor Jankovic who tried to go get his workbook: they didn't let him through. Will they let him empty his office which contains a library that he has gathered over the past two decades? Students of world literature first boycott the lectures of Dr. Dubravka Popovic-Srdanovic who was named by the dean as Professor Jankovic's replacement. The assistant professor from the faculty in Nis who “took over” will certainly never forget for as long as she lives the lecture on ethics that she received from students.

In the professors' offices, two of Dr. Ranko Bugarski's students, visibly excited, came to thank their professor one last time. They can't believe that a scholar of world repute, a wonderful lecturer, the author of about ten books, is not only removed from his position and chased into retirement, but also forbidden to enter the faculty.

THE BOYCOTT AND THE STRIKE: Last week, the lock on the entrance from Knez Mihailova Street was changed. Every professor must now pass through two to three of the dean's security check points. The high temperature at the Philology Faculty must be a sign that students, while supporting the Teacher's Union, will not back down from their demands--the replacement of Dean Radmilo Marojevic, the return of all professors either dismissed or forced into retirement, and amending the Dean's Statute.
Teachers at the Philology Faculty say that any little dressing up will not help: Marojevic's arrival, his "purges", and his reforms have shaken the foundations of one of the oldest establishments of higher education in Serbia. Aside from instruction, there are almost forty lecturers, perhaps even 50. The dean claims that "the teaching is completely covered", but that "the students obviously aren't coming," so in a letter he asked for help explaining the law from the Minister of Education, Jova Todorovic. "It is necessary that you inform the faculty in writing--can I include them on staff. This I ask because they are putting a great deal of pressure on me to draw back from your explanation and to include them on staff." It is rather uncertain that the dean will receive an answer any time soon.

Student protests have been going on for days at various Belgrade faculties because of the dismissal of about ten professors, armed people hired by the dean are walking around the faculties, security has physically hindered "unsuitable" professors from holding instruction, about forty students were in jail, the instruction is practically paralyzed...
In response to a journalist’s question asking what these events are saying, Minister of Education Jovo Todorovic answered, “I didn't have the opportunity to become acquainted with these events...I was not invited by these faculties to visit them and to offer help...I'm not even aware of the students' demands..."!?
As one of the professors who has been forbidden entrance to the faculty says decidedly: Night is dark.

Silence is Sympathy

Oliver Antic, Dean of the Law Faculty in Belgrade, continues with the suspense: the dean prohibited Marija Rudic, a brilliant final year student of this faculty ( 9.53 average), from taking the exam and forced her withdrawal in effect until the end of a disciplinary proceedings. "Marija Rudic is suspended because she organized and called a student tribunal without the approval of competent faculty organs, while her colleagues, the students, took that opportunity to make a ruckus in the streets and halls of the faculty," charged the dean.

A group of professors from the Law Faculty announced an appeal in regard to this which warns that the expulsion of Marija Rudic is a case without precedent, "The arrogance that Professor Antic, the imposing dean of the Law Faculty, demonstrates on this occasion announces a big and unavoidable evil, previously unknown in today's academic experience, which they are preparing for the youngest generation of intellectuals in Serbia. Silence is compassion in the oppression of Marija Rudic," informed Vesna Rakic-Vodinelic, Jovica Trkulja, Vladimir Vodinelic, Kosta Cavoski, Vojislav Stanimirovic, Aleksandra Jovanovic, Slobodanka Nedovic, Gasa Knezevic, Mirjana Todorovic, Dragoljub Popovic, Danilo Basta, Mirjana Stefanofski, Dijana Ivosevic, Goran Svilanovic, Milica Delevic-Djilas, Radmila Vesic, Vojin Dimitrijevic, and Dragor Hiber. As it is known to the public, many of these names are now already former professors of the Law Faculty in Belgrade. Dean Oliver Antic dismissed them, some were punished, some suspended. As they say, the oppression of professors at Belgrade University, as at the Law Faculty, is based on political motives and, like animosity, isn't news, but how cruel, unfair, that it is embedded in the experience of today's middle generation. They appeal to the vice deans of the Law Faculty and colleagues who still have working status that they must prevent the oppression of Marija Rudic, this unprecedented evil and fight.

"If there isn't a serious resistance to this, all that we learned and taught the students means nothing, while we without a profession and without rights, remain without the right to call ourselves law professors," stated signatories of the appeal.

Plotting

Vlada Teodosic, dean of the Electrical Engineering School, invited Stevan Koprivica and Veljko Janjic, president and vice-president of the Students Union of that school, to meet with him on Monday, November 23, at three o'clock in the afternoon. Koprivica and Janjic brought three lawyers and approximately ten colleagues with them. At first, all were crowded in the office of Teodosic's secretary, but a few men from security quickly arrived to clear the office of the uninvited. While the students gathered, they  pasted about ten stickers with the "Resistance" sign on the door of the dean's office. The dean , with the assistance of Milos Laban, announced to Janjic and Koprivica's lawyers that he would "uphold the law at all times" and that he would begin disciplinary action against the two students in ten days. He put the two student activists up on the charge of "interfering with instruction," but he didn't know how to explain what exactly they are blamed for. Although the government approved the new ETF Statute, it hasn't actually come into effect yet because Teodosic failed to announce it on the school announcement board, which the law requires. Teodosic, however, claimed in front of the lawyers that in regard to that, the statute is valid. Except that, "interfering with instruction,", which is mentioned by Teodosic as a possible punishment, is not mentioned as a reason for excluding students from instruction for a certain time in this new statute nor in the new university law. On the occasion of the meeting, notes were not taken because the dean explained that it was an "informative meeting."