Åtminstone sju kvinnor har nu anklagat den världsberömde portugisiske sociologen Boaventura de Sousa Santos för sexuella övergrepp eller trakasserier. I dagarna har de Sousa Santos återvänt till sin forna arbetsplats Centro de Estudos Sociais (CES) vid Coimbras universitet. I samband med detta har graffitin på byggnaden kommit tillbaka, det som var ursprunget till titeln ‘The walls spoke when no one dared’ på kapitlet som sedermera drogs in av Routledge. Om detta skriver Open Democracy:

New reports of harassment emerge against sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos

“Seven women have accused Boaventura de Sousa Santos, emeritus professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal, of allegedly harassing them and taking advantage of their work, according to Brazilian investigative website Agência Pública.

The women, who all pursued doctoral degrees or performed academic research under Boaventura’s supervision, made the accusations in a four-and-a-half-hour interview with Mariama Correia, a reporter and editor at the publication.

Boaventura, an influential thinker on globalisation, epistemology and social change, has denied all wrongdoing, adding that he has never been formally accused of any crime. An inquiry opened in April by Portuguese prosecutors is ongoing.

The female academics who made the allegations are Carla Paiva, Eva García Chueca, Gabriela Rocha, Aline Mendonça, Mariana Cabello, Élida Lauris and Sara Araújo, half of a 14-member so-called ‘collective of victims of Boaventura’.

Their accounts allege sexual and moral harassment, abuse of power, verbal violence and academic exploitation – the use of their work without recognising authorship or remuneration – while they worked or studied at the University of Coimbra’s Centre for Social Studies (CES), which Boaventura directed from its foundation in 1978 until 2019, when he became director emeritus.

Accusations against Boaventura, a distinguished legal scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, first appeared in a book published in March 2023 – though he was not directly named in the book.

The book, Sexual Misconduct in Academia – Informing an Ethics of Care in the University, contained allegations of sexual and moral harassment at the CES, including a reference to an unnamed “star professor”. It also did not reveal the alleged victims’ identities.

Chapter 12 of the book, authored by researchers Lieselotte Viaene, Catarina Laranjeiro and Miye Nadya Tom, is titled ‘The walls spoke when no one dared’, a reference to a graffiti on a University of Coimbra’s wall that read: “Boaventura out. We all know”.

Soon after its publication, Boaventura told a Portuguese newspaper that he was the “star professor”, adding the accusations were “revenge”. The book’s publisher withdrew the book from sale in September 2023, citing “a series of legal threats from various parties”.

In April 2023, Brazilian federal deputy Bella Gonçalves, a member of the Socialism and Liberty Party, said she endured sexual harassment by Boaventura when he was her doctoral adviser in an article in Agência Pública. That month, Boaventura and his assistant researcher, Bruno Sena Martins, voluntarily left their positions at the CES, which set up an independent commission to investigate the allegations.

A report released in February 2024 by the commission found “patterns of conduct of abuse of power and harassment by some people who held senior positions in the CES hierarchy”. The CES then published an open letter apologising to those who consider themselves victims of harassing or abusive behaviour in the context of their activities or work, without mentioning the name of the professor.

In April, the Portuguese Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an inquiry based on the CES independent commission’s findings and reports submitted by the collective of victims of Boaventura, who had until this point spoken out only through anonymous letters. The inquiry is ongoing.

The following month, Portuguese newspaper Diário de Notícias reported that Boaventura had decided to return to his position as a researcher at the CES and had informed the centre’s board of directors of this decision in a meeting.

According to Agência Pública, the seven women decided to come forward and give their names in a quest for “justice”. The group, which includes women from Brazil, Portugal and other countries, claimed that what they’d experienced had irreversibly damaged their self-esteem and careers. Many spoke of permanent psychological damage, anxiety episodes, depression and other health issues as a result of trauma.

Mariana Cabello, from Mexico, was 29 when she won a scholarship for a summer school course at the CES in 2016. The programme was part of the ALICE Project, led by Boaventura, who was then 76 years old. “We went to see a documentary film about human rights. There were about 30 people in the room. Boaventura sat next to me,” Cabello reportedly told Agência Pública. “When the lights went out, he put his hand between my legs, on my crotch. I was in shock”. According to the article, she couldn’t keep up with the classes after that day, and spent most of her time locked in her room.

Agência Pública’s article also mentioned incidents of “public humiliation” and “episodes of anger outbursts” by Boaventura, inappropriate conduct such as “meetings at the professor’s house, where he appeared wearing only a dressing gown or pyjamas”, and “sexual comments” about the researchers’ bodies during work meetings.

Brazilian independent researcher and consultant Élida Lauris, 43, arrived in Coimbra in 2005, when she was 25, to pursue her doctorate. Two years later, she claimed, Boaventura drove her to put her doctoral work aside and prioritise “research of interest to him, which was extra work, without recognising my authorship or agreeing on a fee. The next thing I knew, I was trapped in a system of academic servitude that I couldn’t get out of,” she was reported claiming by Agência Pública.

She claimed that she ended up putting her “scholarship at the service of his needs”, that she cried every night and needed eight years to finish her doctoral studies. When she finally did, she decided to leave the ALICE Project.

Lauris’ account also included allegations of inappropriate sexual comments by Boaventura. She said her professional career, private life and health were badly affected, and that she still suffers panic attacks and chronic pain.

Portuguese researcher Sara Araújo, 45, told Agência Pública she was a 21-year-old undergraduate student when she began working with Boaventura – describing “working in fear”, enduring “psychological torture” and being unable to sleep.

She accused her former professor of “saying that my professional problem was that I wouldn’t go to bed with him” and “using sex as a bargaining chip”.

PhD graduate Aline Mendonça, 45, began her doctorate in Coimbra in the mid-2000s. She claimed she had a good relationship with Boaventura until she joined the ALICE Project in 2011. From that point, she said, he “took away” her autonomy as a researcher and she was “ridiculed at every meeting”. She also described sexual misconduct as “excessively wet kisses on the cheek”, “tight hugs” and the sending of erotic poems and inappropriate comments about her body. Speaking to the Brazilian publication, she reportedly said: “I started having urinary incontinence because of the constant fear and pressure.”

Eva García Chueca, 44, the deputy municipal ombudsman in Barcelona, Spain, who began doctorate studies in Coimbra in 2010 also claimed her studying and working conditions changed for the worse in 2011, when she signed an employment contract with the CES. She claimed Boaventura “became intolerant and violent”.

García Chueca alleged she felt “fear, vulnerability, and low self-esteem”. She spoke of being repeatedly criticised for “quoting authors other than Boaventura” in her research, which was eventually not published by the CES, she said.

The seven women also reportedly witnessed harassment against other female co-workers at the CES, according to their accounts in the Agência Pública article. Brazilian professor Gabriela Rocha, 38, said that between 2013 and 2023 she saw “Boaventura being extremely aggressive and imposing with the people closest to him.”

South African researcher Carla Paiva, 52, who also worked for the ALICE Project, coordinated by Boaventura, claimed she had been the target of public humiliation attacks by the professor. She alleged Boaventura “shouted at” and “called her names”, causing “shock” to her.

She also claimed the professor exerted power at the University of Coimbra comparable to a “religious sect” and that he would admit only “theoretical concepts aligned with his concepts”.

Paiva described spending weekends working on administrative tasks ordered by Boaventura, putting aside her doctorate and losing her scholarship, which caused her financial issues and led her to abandon her academic career. She also described developing an autoimmune disease as a result of being “constantly afraid”.

In a statement to Agência Pública, the University of Coimbra reportedly claimed that the CES “is a private association, statutorily and legally independent, and the University of Coimbra does not have disciplinary powers over the CES”.

The university added that it “strongly condemns all practices of physical or psychological aggression, violence or harassment, exercising an active, vigilant and pedagogical attitude towards situations of improper conduct”.

According to Agência Pública, the university also claimed it has a Charter of Principles for Equality, Equity and Diversity, a Plan for Equality, Equity and Diversity and a Code of Conduct that spells specifically what harassment is. It said it has channels to report harassment at the “directors of units, the student centres, the General Directorate of the Coimbra Academic Association (AAC), a specific office created for the purpose of defending and promoting the rights of students”.

Workers can “turn to the University of Coimbra Workers’ Committee” for complaints or reports, it added. Since June 2022, the university has also offered an online vehicle “for anonymous and/or confidential reports”, the university’s statements reported by Agência Pública added.

The article said that the CES confirmed in a written statement that it had opened a second “preliminary enquiry process” “to investigate possible irregularities” and that “the possible opening of individual disciplinary proceedings depends on the results”. The CES is allegedly drafting a new institutional policy to prevent and combat harassment and abuse, according to the statement cited by Agência Pública.

The Brazilian investigative website also quoted written answers from Boaventura’s communications office, which said that the initial independent investigation carried out by the CES “did not impute crimes or serious misconduct to any of the reported people”, “not even in relation to Professor Boaventura”. The professor’s office continued to say that he “is awaiting the outcome of the proceedings at the Portuguese Public Prosecutor’s Office so that he can present his defence and adequately confront the accusations, proving with evidence that he has not committed any crime”.

The law firm that is representing Boaventura in Brazil, also sent an email to Agência Pública stating: “The noble professor, in his 60 years of career, has never answered any disciplinary ethical process and has, for more than a year, been suffering a media trial without ever having been formally denounced in an administrative or judicial body.”

It continued: “Mr Boaventura, who has historic services in the field of human rights, has never had a formal complaint against him, has never had access to a formal deposition and has been repeatedly confronted for a long time through journalistic articles, apocryphal letters and inaccurate information, being denied to recuse and a broad defence, a characteristic case of lawfare”. The full email can be seen in Portuguese here.

---

UPDATE: 15 August 2024: Professor Boaventura’s UK solicitors have asked us to publish the following statement from him: Professor Santos was first alerted to these matters when he was identified as the subject of a chapter of a book. That chapter has since been withdrawn. These allegations were investigated by the university, Centro de Estudos Sociais (CES). The inquiry completed earlier this year and no findings of misconduct were made against Professor Santos. Professor Santos has never had a formal complaint made against him. Professor Santos vehemently denies the allegations, which have never been put formally to him with supporting evidence.

---

This piece was updated on 20 June 2024 to reflect that Boaventura is no longer the director of the University of Coimbra’s Centre for Social Studies (since 2019 he has been director emeritus), and to change the month in which the book Sexual Misconduct in Academia was withdrawn from publication.