Sex scandal rocks Italian campus

[AnalProbe]

John Hooper in Rome
Wednesday June 9, 2004
The Guardian

For the ageing university professor, his success with young women was down to one thing: oodles of charm.

To the authorities, there was a more plausible explanation for the exploits of the 68-year-old lothario Ezio Capizzano, who videoed some of his romps; he was trading sex for better grades.

In a trial that has scandalised the academic community and threatened to uncover the bedroom shenanigans that are allegedly widespread in Italian universities, Professor Capizzano was charged with misusing public property - the sofa on which he carried out his romancing.

Though the professor was acquitted of the misdemeanour his subsequent boast in a newspaper interview that the women involved willingly had sex with him has done nothing for the suspicion that academics in Italy abuse their status to take advantage of their pupils. Speaking to La Stampa, the professor said: "I have never needed to fall back on either violence or blackmail to have a woman."

He added: "Love is the expression of a gift, of something given without recompense that has nothing to do with an exchange. If that were not the case, then you would need to drag into court all those married couples in which the man is a university teacher and the woman a former student or assistant who has been favoured in her university career."

He said: "If an affair like this were to have arisen in a northern European university, it would never have reached trial."

The scandal erupted three years ago after scenes from some of the 19 videos made by the professor were passed to newspapers. It emerged that the tapes, which had been locked in his study, were stolen by an assistant and his brother.

The academic was found not guilty of all four charges against him. He had been accused of extortion, for having allegedly promised exam passes in return for sex, and of corruption, for having allegedly won the connivance of teaching colleagues whose help he needed to secure good marks for his lovers.

The former professor of commercial and agricultural law was also tried on two counts of indecent assault.

The court heard claims from a student that she had been forced to have sex with him while her young daughter waited outside his study.

The judge returned his verdicts on Monday after four hours of deliberation, interrupted by a request to court officials that he again be shown one of the videos. According to reports yesterday, it showed the professor in flagrante delicto with a blond woman.

Three of Prof Capizzano's female students had also been indicted for corruption, having allegedly offered sex in return for good marks. They were all acquitted.

Professors at Italian universities enjoy a god-like status and the power to make and break the careers of their students and assistants. In the case of undergraduates, this is reinforced by a reliance on oral, rather than written, examinations. There have been repeated claims of students being coerced into sex by the offer of good marks or the threat of bad ones. Similar allegations have been made of students prostituting themselves to get a degree.

Last month a 64-year-old law professor at the university of Messina, Sicily, jumped to his death after being charged with sexual harassment. In 1998 a conference was held at the University of Bari, in southern Italy, on the exploitation of academic power for sexual favours.

At the time the number of formal complaints by students was running at 10 a year, but an organiser of the conference, Ida Mastromarino, told the Guardian: "I believe that this is only the tip of an iceberg."

The prosecutor in the case of Prof Capizzano had asked the judge to impose a four and a half year prison sentence. Sentences of up to two and half years had been sought for the three former students accused of proffering sexual favours. All have since graduated, married and found jobs.

A court ruled last month that Prof Capizzano should pay the University of Camerino ?120,000 (£80,000) for the damage he had done to its reputation. But the only person involved who has been jailed is one of the two men who took the tapes. Both were charged with handling stolen goods and one was given a six-month sentence.

After his acquittal, Prof Capizzano said that since being charged his marriage had broken down and he had suffered two strokes and become partially deaf. But he added: "I would do everything again, though perhaps not in the same place and taking greater care over the people involved."

[pure energy]

Long read!


Somebody summarize it for me, pls?

[Vitasoy]

68 year old professor, offers better grades for sex.

[xxxbruce]

long read dude

[slavdogg]

thats pretty common in europe

i heard stories like this from my ex when she studied in Spain

[AnalProbe]

Originally posted by xxxbruce
long read dude

This was just what it was meant to be.

[Tim]

Bookworm Bitches take note!