“Women who support abortion, who exclude the father and despise life, daughters of whores. Have you already scrubbed like I ordered you to the other day? If you see a stain on a plate or a glass, you will see what is good. Convict the crime and give birth, bitches. Long live Spain, pigs”, are some of the comments that a substitute professor from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) had launched on his social networks. His students, knowing the name of the person who was going to replace their labor law professor, searched the Internet until they found messages praising the Franco regime and containing sexist, xenophobic and homophobic content. “It’s something common that they usually do, they search for us on social networks and on Google to find out more about us”, recognizes Ander Gutiérrez-Solana, professor of international law and one of the witnesses of the The show in which the students participated. last Friday, the professor had to be escorted out of the university.
The teacher was hired to cover Monday and Friday mornings until mid-December. The students, according to Gutiérrez-Solana, informed the university of the professor’s remarks last Monday. Having received no response, they organized on Friday to hold a demonstration and not go to class. The university’s version, collected by the EITB and also by this newspaper, claims that the professor, due to the protests, was “locked in” for two hours in class. Gutiérrez-Solana denies this assertion. “The professor was not “locked up”. He remained inside the classroom for the two hours that corresponded to him and, although he was able to do so, at no time did he attempt to leave it. At that time, I was on social media and writing comments like “I’m bored”, “How many crazy people are out there”, etc. As you see, not very afraid. He came out thinking about it, between screams, there’s no doubt about it,” he admits.
Another clarification from the professor of international law: contrary to what the university information says, “no professor came to the aid” of the professor who had made the misogynistic comments. “No other teachers came to help me. Person. The rest of the teachers present calmed things down (without discouraging the students), but no one came to support him, nor was he locked inside, or anything like that. No one knows him at all and obviously, I know that, no one supports him,” he always emphasizes according to his version.
According to Gutiérrez-Solana, students went to their classroom to denounce the situation. “They’re not afraid as such, but they know they have to take oral exams with him. A student said to me, “A man who publicly hates women, how is he going to take me to class?” How can you go to an oral session with him knowing what he thinks about women? “Is this the atmosphere among his students? “There’s a lot of concern,” he said.
The students were also surprised by the way the media picked up the news of their mobilization. “Criminalization” is the right word, we have seen how the media even accuse us of having committed crimes of detention and threats, this shows that what happened was not properly reported. The teacher came to teach his class, they kicked everyone out of the class (with all their stuff inside and couldn’t claim it) and they kicked three security guards out, two more inside and the vice dean came in and went out. several times (without any sort of escort, because he didn’t need one) from class to talk to him. The teacher left just as his teaching program was coming to an end, he was able to leave as soon as possible and he did not experience it with fear, but with boredom as he says on his own Instagram”, explains Edgar, one of the students of the Faculty of Law, to this newspaper referring to the messages that the teacher published on his social networks while he was in class.
“We are tired of seeing their messages whitewashed, when they say things like ‘you’re sick of abortion,’ which can never be considered free speech. We do not want his figure to be victimized and above all that his political ideology is not so much the problem as the fact that he is Islamophobic, misogynist, sexist and homophobic, no one wants to take an oral exam with a professor like that in front of him , because yes, in addition, his subject (which he claims in class that he is not qualified to give) is evaluated orally,” criticizes the student.
This Monday, at the very moment when the professor was supposed to give lessons, a demonstration took place during which hundreds of students, not only of law, but of other faculties, united to demand that the UPV/ EHU gets rid of this university professor. Leire Vázquez and Sheila Ozuo-omen López are also two of the students affected by this teacher who participated in this Monday’s demonstration. “To me, letting this person teach a class is dangerous because it violates the freedoms of virtually all students. We are women, men, homosexuals and people of color. His comments attack the majority of us, which is why we demand that this man be excluded from the university because it is inconceivable and very dangerous,” laments Vázquez.
“There is a private sphere and a professional sphere, but in this case, what he says, he says openly and publicly and attacks us as students. He called us nerds, said some of us deserved three shots, or made completely inappropriate comments to women wearing skirts. His words affect his students in the field of teaching and he himself took it upon himself to mix the two fields and now they can no longer be separated,” explains Ozuo-omen López.
The Rectorate does not confirm whether it will revoke him or not
The Rectorate of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) confirms to this newspaper that the professor “has not been removed” from his courses. “The classes I had this week have been suspended, that is to say Monday, for today and next Friday,” they explained without specifying whether or not they will continue to give classes in the weeks future. For their part, the dean’s team and the Student Council of the Faculty of Law made public this Monday a letter addressed to the university community of the Faculty of Law of the UPV/EHU, to students, staff and services technical, management and administration. (PTGAS) and the teaching-researcher body (PDI), in which they indicated that the Faculty of Law “constitutes a framework of peaceful coexistence in which coercion, threats and attacks against people or attacks on public property are not ‘have no place’. “There is no reason that justifies the intimidation or harassment of a member of the university community,” they warned, to emphasize that, precisely, in a Faculty of Law, “we are aware that it There are legal instruments that allow any type of complaint. , complaint or similar, against behaviors and statements which, where applicable, may be contrary to the law or to the principles and values of the University.
In this sense, the dean’s team and the student council of the Faculty of Law assure that “there is no excuse that can legitimize these actions aimed at preventing by force the exercise of academic normality.” On the other hand, they indicated that the Faculty of Law of the University of the Basque Country maintains “a firm commitment to the rights, principles and values that govern our coexistence, in particular with the rights to equality and respect for diversity, which must inspire the behavior of all the people who make up the university community, in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the UPV/EHU. In this sense, they rejected “categorically the demonstrations made on social networks and outside them which are contrary to these rights, principles and values”.
