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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it

Occupation magazine - Activism Home page  back Print  Send To friend Academics Worldwide Protest Possible Closure of Israeli Political-Science Department The Global Ticker The Chronicle of Higher Education October 19, 2012 http://chronicle.com/blogs/global/academics-worldwide-protest-possible-closure-of-israeli-political-science-department/35080 More than 600 academics worldwide are protesting the threatened closure of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s department of politics and government, sending a petition to Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s education minister, to halt the move. A subcommittee of Israel’s Council for Higher Education has recommended suspending registration of students for the next academic year after it said the department had failed to carry out the recommendations of an international quality-assurance committee. But the petition letter to Mr. Sa’ar argues the move is an attempt to silence the department’s faculty members who have criticized the Israeli government. “This attack on the department quite transparently has nothing to do with the quality of its staff, or of their teaching or research. It has everything to do with the fact that some of them have publicly taken brave and locally unpopular political positions,” says the letter, which was organized by two academics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. As of Friday, 633 scholars had signed the statement. The fate of the department is to be decided at a meeting of the Council for Higher Education on October 30. This entry was posted in Israel. Bookmark the permalink. rh Links to the latest articles in this section Refusing the war! Demonstration today, Thur. Apris 24, at 7.30 pm, Habima Square, Tel Aviv Refusing the war! Demonstration today, Thur. Apris 24, at 7.30 pm, Habima Square, Tel Aviv Saturday night protests: No to Netanyahu`s war!