The aggression suffered last Thursday, 8 March, on the Leioa campus, has been the subject of analysis. As they have explained, a feminist strike program was being held that day, when a male teacher threatened them with a stick and attacked two women*. They have said that, beyond this aggression, this teacher has for years maintained a repressive attitude towards the most disadvantaged groups, as many teachers, workers and students have reported. “The attitude of this teacher cannot be understood as an isolated behavior, but as the final limit of a global attitude towards women,” they have pointed out.
According to them, "the professor who has committed the aggression is not just any professor." They have recalled that both in the university itself and in other institutions it has important positions and a wide network of contacts and that it is a figure that conditions the future of students of the Faculty of Medicine and Nursing. Faced with the power of the aggressor, and with the possibility that this “personal vendetta” could ruin someone’s career trajectory, they have decided not to proceed by judicial means.
Aside from the judicial route, they went to the Department of Equality of the Rectorado of the UPV/EHU in search of “support and help”. They also held talks with professors, deanship of Medicine and Rectorado, and the Department of Equality informed the assaulted professor that a process of opening the dossier and of disposition to protect them was to be started, as explained by the feminist group. “However, the beginning of this process was pretty dark. Debates began between the different departments of the UPV/EHU and in general made us understand that everyone had their hands tied (…) It seemed that nobody wanted to intervene.” From the UPV/EHU they were informed that an internal dossier would finally be opened, and there was no more news until some of the students were called to testify. As they have explained, at first it was detected that he wanted to present as aggressors the institutions he knew as victims of the aggression.
“The aggressor is without any regret for the faculty, showing his contempt for all the students who associate him with the feminist movement (…) When we have asked the UPV/EHU if after so long the process that started the previous course is going on, the answer that has been received is that only the result will be known to the expedited and the aggressor,” they have stressed.
Faced with this situation, they have denounced that the UPV/EHU has not supported the victims and has tried to make them feel guilty of closing the administrative process. In addition to condemning the UPV/EHU not to inform those who suffered the aggression of the decision taken on the case, they have considered the UPV as an accomplice to the aggressor: “Looking outward and on paper, the UPV/EHU is presented as a progressive and feminist institution (…) With this process it has demonstrated its true character: an institution that has defended the anonymity and privilege of the aggressor in the face of such attacks and that has left the victims out.”