Moscow State University is investigating its teaching standards and quality of life, amid student
complaints of anti-Semitic and extremist views infiltrating the
curriculum. The investigation into the sociology department at one of Russia’s most
prestigious universities was sparked when a rare burst of grassroots organizing
among the student body last week began to catch the media’s attention.
“The dean’s office has distributed a brochure to all students which
approvingly quotes the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ blames Freemasons and
Zionists for the world wars and claims that they control U.S. and British
policy and the global financial system,” a student group wrote in a public
appeal. “Studying conditions at the department are unbearable.”
Sociology department Dean Vladimir Dobrenkov conceded that living
conditions on campus were poor, but dismissed the student’s allegations of
anti-Semitic and xenophobic content in the curriculum as “full of hints,
rumors and half-truths.”
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