Institutional Statement by the UAB Governing Council
Statement made by the UAB Governing Council following the conviction of Professor Àlvar Sánchez for sexual harrassment in the university teaching environment.
The Governing Council met on 16 March 2023 in an ordinary session and wishes to express its rejection of any male violence and, specifically, to condemn the harassment carried out by Professor Àlvar Sánchez from 2016 to 2018.
The Governing Council has been informed that since 2018 the UAB has worked to:
1.- Provide protection to the victim. The victim has been accompanied at all times by the university: she has had continuous assistance and legal defense in the criminal proceedings.
2.- Develop the appropriate legal activity to ensure the completion of the procedure. Thanks to the determination of the victim and the work carried out by all the people involved in the preparation of the complaint, we now have a criminal sentence in which, after proving the facts included in the accusation, the professor has been condemned.
3.- Adopt precautionary measures. In this case, precautionary measures have been taken once the Legal Office received formal notification of the sentence in the second instance by the Provincial Court of Barcelona. It is at this moment when precautionary measures could be applied without distorting either the evaluation of the evidence or the qualification of the crime.
The Governing Council wishes to emphasise that the resolution of this case with a criminal sentence, thanks to the actions carried out by the UAB, shows that we are making decisive progress in the eradication of gender violence in our classrooms, while we assume that we can and must learn lessons from all these processes to make our actions more agile and efficient. The Governing Council expresses empathy and support to each and every one of the people of the university community who may have been affected by this situation.