British Academics in Italy Celebrate Victory in Lengthy Legal Battle

Seven British lecturers at Italy’s University of Padua have been awarded nearly $500,000 each in back pay by an Italian court, capping a long-fought legal campaign, The Guardian reported. David Petrie, a lecturer at the University of Verona who has become the spokesman for a movement by foreign instructors seeking pay and working conditions on a par with their Italian counterparts, is due to meet with Britain’s Europe minister today and will press him to take up the lecturers’ cause with the Italian government. Although foreign lecturers have won previous cases and others are pending in the courts, last week’s ruling is significant because “the university has said it cannot pay up, suggesting the Italian government might finally step in with a solution for all universities,” Mr. Petrie told The Guardian. “Pressure from the British government may help that happen.”