Fourteen women sent on June 17 to the rector of the, Joan Guàrdia, a letter denouncing by Ramón Flecha, currently Professor Emeritus of Sociology of that University, throughout the last three decades, a period in which Arrow has served as a professor and researcher, and also as a director – officially for a few years and after effectively, according to that document, according to that document. of Research on Excellence for All), a research center specialized in social inequalities, and specifically in cases of sexual violence in universities, of which these 14 women were part at some point.
In the letter, sent by the law firm that represents them, the facts are exposed and information is requested from the rector of the UB, among other issues, about whether they have received “through any of the channels of qualified complaints, information on the sexual contacts of Mr. Ramón Arrow with members of CREA”, something that this Thursday has revealed an investigation carried out by Eldiario.es, Rtve News 4-rne and infolibre.
In that document, which this newspaper has subsequently had access, the lawyers allude to the “utmost severity of the testimony of several women who have been part of Crea [entre ellas algunas de sus representadas]which report having had sex with Mr. Ramón Arrow in a context of clear hierarchical inequality – in the quality of students, fellows, doctoral or subordinates – and under a repeated pattern of behavior that fits with a logic of sexual coercion, abuse of power, sexual harassment, psychological violence and labor exploitation ”.
“A pattern,” they define from that legal team. One that has been seen consistently over the last years in areas where there is a clear hierarchy in which there is a man who exercises power to submit, violate, coerce or manipulate women below. It can be one of those examples or, in Spain, or the testimonies of several women.
In this case, that document sent to the UB explains that “said employer begins with academic contact. From his position as a professor, of professor, of a reference in the field, of the main researcher of European projects and the person who makes all the decisions of the group, etc., comes into contact with students, listeners or participants of their classes or conferences (being a characteristic of these their youth and professional inexperience). Personal, normally accompanied by offers to integrate in Crea, participate in their projects, integrate them into a university department, guide them in their doctorate, etc. ”.
“Generally,” adds the text, does it “through informal quotations, coffees or encounters, or eventually in the framework of tutorials.” There, “Mr. Arrow rapidly transfers the professional limit, asking intimate questions (about sexual and/or sentimental relations), deploying theories that analyze alleged traumas and conflicts that these girls have had, making insinuations and establishing, finally, a physical contact, which leads, in most cases, in sexual relations maintained simultaneously with several of them with different of them with different frequency, combining these with different frequency propositions of working on projects, attending congresses. ”
“Indicating”, in addition, “as they should dress, as they had to behave and even what and how much they should eat and/or drink and, ultimately, exercising a pattern of behavior where sexual coercion presides over the relationship that transfers all the reasonable limits of a teacher/student relationship, thesis director/Doctor of/Dr./Subordinate.”
The letter also states that these practices are aware of some women who currently belong to CREA, and that “help to naturalize the proposal to maintain ‘open relationships’ from dialogic, friendship and personal transformation that has an impact on the benefit of CREA and their academic and scientific production.” Relationships that were with arrow, according to the letter, or “with the people that Mr. Arrow validated.” And they add the lawyers that once women leave that center, and therefore from that kind of “closed group”, and try to denounce and tell what they have lived inside, “a campaign not only of discredit begins but of professional discredit” that affects them in all areas of their life.
The UB response
That letter, these women’s lawyers explain, was sent on June 17 both to the rector, as well as their chief of cabinet and put a copy to the legal services of the university, and “despite the seriousness of what was exposed in the document”, it was not until day 26 when the lawyers requested by email an accuse of written receipt, which were sent that confirmation.
From the UB they affirm to this newspaper that the letter is “a request for information”, but not “a complaint”, and that also includes details such as the identity of women and the date of the facts, which allows to call to offer testimonies or open an investigation. Something that, the lawyers explain, is not what they asked for in the document: “We were asking for information, gathering, or that they would inform us what the safe channel was to send them more concrete issues.”
In that sense, the campus confirms that information on the degree of knowledge of the facts and measures taken and details that two complaints against the professor and against 2004 (by scholarship management, internal operation of the group and economic management of the center) and in 2016 (“by sectarian behavior and psychological abuse” are requested, and in 2016 “There were no constitutive made of crime or there were objective evidence of criminal offense,” explain the same sources, which also add that these facts have already prescribed.
To the legal team of the 14 women, the University responded on July 1 that they could put the facts into knowledge through channels such as the “alert and anti -fraud mailbox”, “ethical mailbox, institutional integrity and coexistence”, or “to the mailbox of the equal unit.”
“Does that respond to the seriousness of what we are raising?” The lawyers ask, remember that what they now expose is part of “a case that has already passed through that unit without the one that arrow had had sex with one of the complainants, neither in 2004 nor in 2016.”
Therefore, they say, they understood “that he was the rector, as the highest governing body, who had to know the situation and who could offer information about what role he creates in the university”, because “not only is arrow indicated, but how it parapets and uses that center to exercise that pattern of coercion. In addition, it is not a specific case, but a situation of systematic sexual coercion, a matter of maximum severity that transcends the frame which affects the UB ”.
Although Arrow left in 2006 the Crea address, lawyers write in the document that “both for the public information available (social networks, publications, congress organization, project concessions, etc.), and for the direct testimonies” of their represented, “everything indicates that it has continued to exercise a position of effective control and leadership within the group”.
And to the argument of the UB that the center ceased to be attached to the university in 2020 – explaining that it has given both the lawyers and to this newspaper – the reality is that the website maintains the domain of the campus, and its members the emails, something that the university ensures that it had not detected, but that it will correct shortly.
The lawyers are consisted of these public samples of the link beyond 2020 between UB and CREA, in addition to the UB between 2020 and 2023 led by Ramón Arrow and Crea; the signature of Crea in the emails next to the UB; or a letter from the center with the LOGO of the UB that signs arrow and in which it is said that he will tutor a student’s investigation. They claim that this attempt to “take off the dead from” that it seems “the position of the UB is very serious.”
Arrow has denied all the facts attributed to him already through the social network X has been shown as “victim” of complaints against gender violence. “Whenever I have supported victims who have asked me, those who aggregate them have threatened me with different words, but with the same content: that if I supported them they would destroy me inventing everything that was instrumentally effective to do so,” after the publication of the news by four media.
The telephone 016 serves the victims of sexist violence, their families and their surroundings 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in 53 different languages. The number is not registered on the telephone bill, but you have to erase the device call. You can also contact via emailand by WhatsApp in the number 600 000 016. The minors can go to the telephone of the Anar 900 20 20 10. If it is an emergency situation, the telephones of the National Police (091) and the Civil Guard (062) can be called at 112 OA. And in case of not being able to call, the alertcops application can be used, from which an alert signal to the police with geolocation is sent.
