M.S. was one of the faculty members who always showed the most support with survivors. She was a member of the first Equality Committee of her School, in which also, the first complaint was handled against the most reoffending and denounced professor at the University of Barcelona (UB). The protocol against gender-based violence (GBV) in our universities was approved in that School. It quotes, as its basis, the research of the research center led by M.S. The first reaction of the equality committee to the first complaint was to dismiss it for considering that the evidence presented was not strong enough. However, an email from the Harvard Office of Sexual Harassment changed that position. Following the ethical criteria of that university, –in which M.S. also received her PhD-, it was M.S., the only one of the committee who was always actively supporting survivors and acting against the harassers.
At the point when many cases of the same professor began to reach the committee, all of its members stated that, if the School took no measures, they would all resign. However, later on, when the UB decided not to take action, the Dean and the President of the Equality Committee wrote a letter maintaining that everything possible had been done by the School and nothing else could be done. They brought up to all members of the Equality Committee that they had to sign that letter individually. M.S. refused to sign it because that meant leaving the student back in the hands of that professor and affirming that she agreed with that position. All the other people reproached her for not agreeing to sign, but she replied that no one could force her to stamp her signature on any document and much less on one of that kind.
The Dean appointed a new Equality Committee, of which M.S. was no longer part. This was not the first nor the last case. Before and after, people who have supported survivors and who have researched and published on this topic in the main international scientific journals, have been excluded from the equality committees of the same university. In spite of having consulted many sources, we have not been able to find any case in that university in which a person has been removed from these committees for having attacked the victims and defended, therefore, the harassers.
