Writes Professor Jo Ann Cavallo:

Dear Lew, 

Marco Bassani’s colleagues have initiated a petition. Would you be able to post it on the LRC Blog?  Since the link is in Italian, I’ve included an English translation below as well.

Petition: Why we support Professor Bassani and freedom of expression

The decision taken by the Board of the State University of Milan to suspend Professor Luigi Marco Bassani for a month appears unjustified and signals a deterioration in social life and public debate. In fact, we are facing serious damage to freedom of expression (which should be protected by the Constitution) which must put us on alert, especially since, in this specific case, the punishment is for the simple sharing of a satirical vignette, a so-called “meme,” and in a context that has nothing to do with academic activity.

This is only the latest episode, and perhaps the most paradoxical, in a series of examples of censorship of thought that have affected various scholars and intellectuals in recent years. Having reposted on one’s Facebook page a meme that included a photograph of the future Vice President of the United States, along with ironic comments about some episodes of her political career, may have been of dubious taste, but it cannot in any way constitute the basis for a process of the ideas, principles and style of any citizen who carries out the role of university teacher or any other profession. The professor’s style, in fact, was explicitly contested in a document of last November 16 with which the Rector informed Professor Bassani that he had initiated a disciplinary initiative against him: “what happened does not constitute an isolated episode, as it is your custom to express publicly on social network strong opinions, sometimes with extreme content .”

The affair involving Marco Bassani raises a legitimate concern about the state of freedom of expression in our society and especially in the academic world, to which we intend to draw attention. However you want to judge the issue, there is and will always be a difference between an irony and an offense. To drop this distinction means to legitimize any repressive action of thought, in the present and in the future.