Let them teach me

On Thursday, March 27, at 17.00, near the University metro station, an action will be held in support of expelled students and dismissed teachers of the sociological and biological faculties of Moscow State University. The action starts at 17:00. In March 2008, social science students Svetlana Erpyleva, Ekaterina Tarnovskaya, Olga Bushneva and Aelita Zabrodina, who were participants in the OD-group student initiative, were expelled. At the same time, research assistant Nina Sorokina was dismissed from the faculty, who spoke out in support of the “undesirable” students. According to members of the OD-group, in October 2007, student Roman Belousov was expelled from the Faculty of Biology at Moscow State University, who refused to participate in conducting illegal experiments on animals (without the use of anesthesia).

The conflict between the dean's office of the Faculty of Sociology of Moscow State University and students began a long time ago. There are two main reasons: everyday and ideological. The first includes an expensive buffet, dirty toilets, a poorly functioning library and other “joys”, the second is the specific views of Dean V.I. Dobrenkov, who, according to students, is, firstly, incompetent, and secondly, instills in students exclusively anti-Semitic views. As a result, the protesting students united into the OD-group, and the authorities responded by simply expelling the dissatisfied. Official reasons: poor academic performance, “immoral” behavior. Students are confident that the recent expulsions are actually political repression. To prove that the expelled students actually studied well, photographs of their record books were posted on the OD-group website.