P was doing her doctoral thesis on gender and school. The deposit of her thesis coincided with the moment when the results of a national project on gender violence in universities were presented. The thesis was submitted to an external evaluation, whereby the quality of the thesis was negatively qualified. The evaluators wrote a report stating that the thesis was not consistent, nor was the educational model it analyzed, and recommended the inclusion of some authors.
Her PhD supervisor had already informed the management of her faculty of the existence of mechanisms that could facilitate harassment within the master’s and doctoral program of the faculty. The facts were reported in writing to the vice-rectorate and the corresponding vice-deanship, alleging that the thesis had been scientifically endorsed by other professionals, for example, P had made a research stay at a prestigious North-American university. Also, the model on which it was based was validated by an international competitive project. In this context, a talk was also organized with the director of the anti-harassment office of a prestigious foreign university, raising the voice against GBV at the university.
P had to redo the thesis, incorporating some of the things he had been told. The thesis had to be typeset and deposited a second time and was accepted. The person who handled the case in the faculty turned out to be an accomplice of someone who had been accused of harassment at the university. P later got a competitive postdoctoral contract at another university, thanks to the strong CV she had. The attitude she suffered in her faculty showed to be part of the retaliation for defending victims of sexual harassment.
