The Institut del Teatre case brought to light 11 complaints of abuse of power and harassment at the ESMUC.

BarcelonaThe music industry is in turmoil. Dozens of students have taken to the streets to demand an end to impunity for the abuse of power exercised by some teachers. It was the turn of a guitar teacher who was removed from the Liceu Conservatory after being reported to have groped a student, a case that has progressed. The Newspaper.In recent years, the world of culture has experienced a change in the way it establishes relationships between students and teachers, especially after the Institut del Teatre case broke out. This is now the case of the Catalan School of Music (Esmuc). When the ARA newspaper published its report on the Institut del Teatre, the director, Núria Sempere, wrote to nearly 2,500 graduates of the school to find out if they had experienced similar situations. "At that time, 11 people wrote to us and told us what they had suffered. Situations of abuse of power and situations that could be classified as harassment. Whoever tells you there aren't cases is lying," explains Sempere from Paris.

Esmuc began investigating the reported cases, but not all of them were successful because some students preferred not to pursue the procedure. In the end, no dismissals took place because either the cases had expired, or the individuals involved did not have permanent contracts and were no longer with the school, or the teachers were away from the school and had not returned. However, there were "sanctions for behavior contrary to the code of ethics and the harassment protocol."

Seven years ago, just as Sempere took over as director of the institution, and four years before the Institut del Teatre case, the new administration convened the feminist collective, and "inappropriate behavior" from four professors emerged. These were situations inappropriate for higher education, but they could not be classified as harassment or sexual abuse, but simply ways of speaking and acting that were completely out of place, "unacceptable." One example was that, to explain the diaphragm, the professor "directly touched" the student's diaphragm, when there were other ways to explain things without being so invasive. "If you touch someone, ask permission, because it's very violent to have your diaphragm touched directly without warning," the director explains. As a result of these situations and the implementation of the relevant protocols and ethical codes, the faculty began to reflect on how power was exercised. "But the big issue isn't bullying, which is very violent and uncomfortable for us, and is horrifying. For this bullying to occur, there must be a climate of power that allows those who hold it to abuse it. Therefore, from our point of view, what needs to be attacked are the power relations between students and teachers; a crime," Sempere explains.

Since this is music education, in instrumental classes, the student is alone with the teacher. This entails a uniqueness that doesn't exist in other academic settings. As a result, changes were made so that all offices would have windows to offer maximum transparency in meetings between students and teachers. Another transformation that has been promoted, and which will soon come into effect, is how assessment should be done. According to Sempere, if the assessment "is opaque," the student "has no weapon to confront an abuse of power by the teacher."