UNAN-Leon Fires 15 Professors for Disloyalty to Ortega

The Dean of the University of Nicaragua (UNAN-Leon), Flor de Maria Valle, wanted to verify if her order was fully implemented. She had personally delivered 15 dismissal letters to the director of Human Resources. Then she stayed to watch the moment when the professors of the Dentistry School left the campus.

The dismissal letters provide no argument or article of law that justifies the decision made by president Valle on September 11. It simply reads: “As of today, your appointment as professor of the Dentistry Faculty is canceled.”

Those fired were 13 dentistry professors and two administration workers. The professors were forced to vacate the university campus expeditiously. They are still awaiting payment of their employment benefits. They agreed to talk to the media only under anonymity.

The fired professors assure that the cause of the dismissal is that they recently won the election to represent their colleagues in the Higher Education Professionals Union, a situation that upset the Dean.

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The Dentistry School is the only place “where the FSLN lost in the elections of the professors’ union. Worse still, it is the only Faculty that presented a ticket without party affiliation,” said one of the dismissed professors. The union members were ratified in a meeting held on September 10^th. “The next day at 10 a.m. came the dismissal notice came.”

They fired nearly all the experienced professors

Among those fired are long-standing professionals, most of them with masters and PhDs. “We were practically the last specialists remaining in the Faculty,” previously they fired 13 of the 36 professors. Inexperienced dentists will now fill these positions. Professors “who just graduated,” the source pointed out.

After the April 2018 Rebellion, the UNAN-Leon carried out massive dismissals in different faculties. Since then an undetermined number of professors “resigned under pressure.” Others “retired at 55 years old,” although the law allows them to continue working.

Recently, the University Council of the UNAN-Leon gave Dean Valle the power to: “sanction, suspend or cancel appointments of academic, administrative and service personnel, as well as to expel members of the student community,” who carry out actions that “threaten the peace.” The decision eliminated the need for the approval of a Council Resolution as was the policy until a week ago.