The Attack on Marco Bassani
You may remember a meme circulating widely after the U.S. presidential election last November with a picture of Kamala Harris and the following comment: “She will be an inspiration to young girls by showing that if you sleep with the right powerfully connected men then you too can play second fiddle to a man with dementia. It’s basically a Cinderella story.”
The political theorist and historian Marco Bassani, Professor of History of Political Theory at the Università Statale di Milano, was one of many who reposted the meme on a personal social media page. When this was brought to the attention of his university, the administration initiated disciplinary proceedings that finally reached a conclusion this past week after over six months. The verdict, reported in the Italian news, was that Prof. Bassani was found guilty of sharing “sexist and highly offensive content, not only toward the directly interested party but toward the entire female gender.” As punishment, his university teaching and salary were suspended for one month.