Omertá (9). The “everything goes”

“C” has tried to be the public leader of all those «affected» by the victims of violence who have dared to denounce. His greatest triumph was when those who handled the threads decided to use him as the public name of the media lynching campaign against the victims. This attack took place on the Monday of the same week that the full Professor who had presumably perpetrated more cases of sexual harassment to students had to return to his position in university, after months of work leave. The goal was to destroy the great and massive sign-up campaign aimed at forbidding that this Professor could continue harassing. That day, C celebrated his triumph along with the people whom he pretended to impress. However, he did not know that those who really handled the threads celebrated it even more: they were throwing the stone and hiding their hand afterwards. They had even funded and disseminated a public act organized by him, which was focused on attacking the victims and those who had supported victims.

Unlike the «Informer», whom the article Omertá 8 speaks about, C was a former member of the research group until the moment when the group decided to finally break the silence about sexual harassment in university. At this very moment C was removed from the group. In having himself been a member of the research group, his lies about what he had lived and experienced while being there would have sounded with more credibility among the uninformed public. Journalists who spread his attacks already knew not only that these «informations» were lies, but also the reason why they were told. However, those journalists were not moved by looking for veridic information or even defending the victims, rather to feed their morbid audience and thus achieve a projection that they could not achieve with their own -lack of- professional quality.

What they did not count with was the support that both breaking the silence and the group that had dared to initiate it had internationally, including scholars from Harvard University, Cambridge University, or the European Women’s Lobby. Nor were they aware of the support the victims received from very significant civic organizations such as the Platform against Gender Violence in Catalonia, which gathered more than one hundred associations. Nor were they aware that the large majority of journalists were indeed going to exercise an excellence professional role which would not include at any case collaborating with first nor second order harassers. Those attacks that were thought would destroy forever the research group in question did cause a cruel damage to its members and their families. Nevertheless, they did not achieve its destruction. On the contrary, the cruel attacks portrayed in some media generated a great increase of the international prestige that the research group already had.

C has once again increased his discredit and his frustration, although he does not stop thinking about through which means he can continue attacking. C dedicates to this objective the energy that many people dedicate to create scientific knowledge that can serve to improve society. However, those who handle the threads, those who throw the stone and hide the hand, continue denying their collaboration with the attacks. But the written and oral evidences that DF is consulting make us think that little by little the truth will be unfolded, and that they will never again be able to harass.

* This article is part of the Omertá in the University, a series of publications that tackle the strong law of silence that has been generated in some universities around sexual harassment.