RECTOR PROFUMO IS THE WINNER OF THE "ITALIAN DOORMAT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE" ANTI-PRIZE
Today, the first edition of the Anti-awards took place at the Italian Chamber of Deputies Coference Room, organized by the Department of Centopercentoitaliano, part of the "Esperanto" Radical Association. Prof. Francesco Profumo, Rector of the Polytechnic Institute of Turin, was the numer one wrong-doer for discriminating against Italian mothertongue students. Not only has the institute eliminated a number of the courses, which are normally taught in Italian, with the equivalent English-speaking courses, it has also adopted a policy that systematically discourages students to learn in their own mothertongue by removing university taxes for all those who wish to take the courses in English only. The judges, stars of the Italian art and culture enviroment, have named Prof. Finazzi Agrò, the Rector responsible for the birth of a pharmaceutical degree course at the University of Tor Vergata taught exclusively in English, in second place; and the Piemonte Region, represented by Mercedes Bresso and Andrea Bairati, in third place, for having violated the European principles of multilinguism, imposing the rule that applications for research funding of humanistic subjects, which are mostly local, will be accepted only if written in English. The tricolored doormat therefore goes to the unreachable Rector Profumo: as Mariella Nava said in her speech, Profumo’s case is the most outrageous of all, given that he taxes those who wish to study in the Repubblic’s language, as is in their rights, and alleviates the tax for those who choose to study in the Queen’s language."