Daily Bruin File Photo András
Bodrogligeti
By Scott B. Wong
Daily Bruin Staff
András Bodrogligeti, the 76-year-old Turkic language and
culture professor amid a pending discrimination lawsuit against the
University of California Regents, said he doesn’t feel safe
on campus anymore, after another faculty member in his department
allegedly threatened him verbally and physically in Kinsey Hall on
May 14.
Robert Englund, an Assyriology professor, allegedly insulted and
accosted Bodrogligeti as he was sorting his mail in the Near
Eastern languages and cultures office around 11:30 a.m., according
to Bodrogligeti’s May 18 letter to university police.
“Someone was reading my mailbox name and bent down really
close and asked “˜Are you Professor
Bodrogligeti?'” Bodrogligeti said. “Then he
started shouting at me and shaking his fist at me.”
But, although Englund said he spoke with Bodrogligeti, he denied
the allegations, calling them “silly.”
Nancy Greenstein, UCPD director of community services, said
Bodrogligeti’s letter did not follow protocol and therefore
does not constitute an official police report. But Bodrogligeti
said he plans to file an official report with police today.
According to Englund, the incident consisted entirely of his
expressing to Bodrogligeti that he did not appreciate having
personal e-mails sent to all faculty members.
“He had sent an insulting letter to our chair but instead
sent it to everybody,” Englund said. “I was stating to
him that that is like spamming.”
Acting NELC Chair William Schniedewind e-mailed department
faculty members March 19 that a Stanford University Jewish studies
professor had declined an offer to teach at UCLA. Bodrogligeti
responded to Schniedewind via e-mail that he “would have done
the same thing.”
“I was frustrated that not much consideration was given to
the candidate,” Bodrogligeti said in an interview. “In
my judgment not much effort was given to retain this
professor.”
Receiving this message through the e-mail faculty list, Englund
confronted Bodrogligeti March 19 and 22 about the meaning of his
one-line comment.
“Dr. Bodrogligeti, I will ask you again through this route
what you mean to convey to us ““ that is, the members of the
(faculty) list, but also the dean and vice dean of the Division
““ with your comment,” Englund wrote in the second
e-mail message. “I will have a response to this
matter.”
According to Englund, the allegations are an
“extraordinary misrepresentation” of an attempt to
convey to Bodrogligeti the way in which e-mail lists work.
Bodrogligeti said he was unaware his response to Schniedewind
was sent to the entire department.
“It turned out (Englund) was yelling about a response to
an e-mail sent to all members of the faculty,” Bodrogligeti
said. “He said “˜Don’t you ever send any e-mail to
me or my division.'”
But both Diane Abugheida, NELC student affairs officer, and
Ralph Jaeckel, NELC emeritus lecturer, whose office doors open into
the department mail room, said they neither heard nor saw anything
out of the ordinary the morning of May 14.
“In my opinion, if it were a loud dispute out of the
ordinary, I would have heard it,” said Abugheida, adding that
she always leaves her office door open.
Jaeckel, whose office door was closed that morning, said he only
became aware of Bodrogligeti’s presence once the professor
knocked on his door. Jaeckel, who previously taught Turkic
languages, said he took Bodrogligeti out for coffee in Kerckhoff
Hall.
“He wasn’t feeling very well that day,”
Jaeckel said.
Bodrogligeti said he associated developing symptoms of dizziness
and nausea with the altercation.
“The incident was a most traumatic experience for
me,” Bodrogligeti stated in the letter to police. “I
felt sick and one of my colleagues had to help me down on the
stairs to my office.”
Attorney Diana Courteau, who represents Bodrogligeti, said
she’s especially concerned because her client is not in a
good mental and physical state.
“It’s indicative that the university hasn’t
resolved anything or dealt with (the case), so it’s just
sitting there continuing to cause more problems,” she
said.
Englund said he expects Bodrogligeti is connecting him with
“old issues” that have brewed within the
department.
In his December 1999 lawsuit against the regents, Bodrogligeti
alleged that high-ranking university administrators, including Dean
of Humanities Pauline Yu and Chair of NELC Antonio Loprieno, who
has taken a leave of absence to assume a chair-post at a
Switzerland university, have tried to coerce him into resignation
to eliminate the Turkish studies program.
Administrators are not allowed to speak about personnel issues
due to university policy, but attorneys for the UC Regents have
said before that the university denies all allegations.
Schniedewind said he reported the alleged confrontation between
Bodrogligeti and Englund to Yu and will let the dean’s office
handle it.
Yu could not be reached for comment because she is out of town
for the week.
According to Courteau, last week’s incident may not have
marked the first time the professor experienced physical harm.
In December 1996, after Bodrogligeti and his assistants caught
30 students cheating on an Elementary Uzbek final exam, 12 students
allegedly assaulted the professor as he sat in his office, pressing
his face down against his desk, according to Bodrogligeti.
Although Bodrogligeti decided not to file charges with police,
Courteau said she was surprised the university didn’t do more
when the professor reported the incident to university
administration.
Currently on a one-year sabbatical, Bodrogligeti said he
periodically visits campus to pick up his mail and check telephone
messages.
“But how can I go to campus if this is the reception I
get?” he said.