Dear members of the Middlesex University board of governors,

the decision taken today to suspend students and staff at Middlesex for their legitimate and courageous attempt to reverse the disastrous and narrow-minded closure of the philosophy department is an act of unmitigated cowardice, bullying and stupidity. Confronted by an inspiring and international campaign of support, which has tried to remind them of the intellectual mission of their university, the Middlesex management have opted to stop up their ears and intensify their campaign of academic vandalism.

I can only hope that, mindful of your responsibilities to the university and to education, you will exercise your judgement and put immediate pressure on those members of the board who have taken this myopic and repugnant decision, before your university is grey-listed for persecuting the very lecturers and students that are standing up for the values of education and critical thought. Colleagues in other universities, who have already voiced their unequivocal support for the cause of Middlesex philosophy, will not let these actions pass unnoticed. They will draw the inevitable consequences from your actions, and break all contacts with an establishment which, if it remains on this path, will lose its right to call itself a university.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Alberto Toscano
Senior Lecturer
Department of Sociology
Goldsmiths, University of London