A UB professor, accused by students, has been pursuing the ARA in court for five years.

BarcelonaA letter from a group of fourteen people sent to the rector of the University of Barcelona, ​​​​Joan Guardia, denounces the professor – now emeritus – Ramon Flecha to have sexual relations "in a context of clear hierarchical inequality" with "students, interns, doctoral students or subordinates", according to a joint publication by RTVE Noticias, Ràdio 4, Eldiario.es and InfoLibre. This same professor has been legally pursuing the newspaper ARA for five years for having published, in 2016, that his research group, CREA (Community of Research on Excellence for All), had been denounced, accusing it of acting like a cult, a complaint that was eventually shelved after a year.

The four media outlets claim that during the last year 24 researchers have left CREA for reasons related to this complaint and have spoken with six women who claim that Flecha asked them for sexual relations between 2000 and 2019, according to details. Eldiario.esThe women maintain that, when they were collaborating with CREA or as students, Flecha proposed dates outside of work, asked for massages, did housework for them, used excuses to sleep with them on business trips, and even asked them for sexual relations or pressured them into having sex. The UB has admitted to the ARA (Spanish National Archives) that the rector "has received a letter from a lawyer" related to this case, which its legal services have already responded to and that they have proposed a meeting to discuss the matter, but maintains that the letter is confidential.

The ARA has contacted Flecha, who turns the situation around and attacks witnesses and complainants. He says that what the four media outlets have done is "interview only the people who allegedly attacked the victims" and that "the first thing to do is talk to the victims." "Whenever I have supported a victim, the aggressors have threatened to destroy me, making up everything necessary to do so," he adds.

Judicial persecution

Ramon Flecha and his successor as director of CREA, also a professor of sociology at the UB Marta Soler, sued the newspaper ARA in 2020 for the article "A UB research group is denounced, accusing it of acting like a cult.", published by this journalist five years earlier. Following a CREA press conference, the article explained that several members of the university community had filed complaints against the research group and that these complaints were added to others from 2004, which had led the university to conduct an internal investigation and submit it to the Prosecutor's Office. It also gave the version of the CREA members who spoke at the press conference. However, and which was also published the news of the filing of the complaints, Flecha and Soler claimed that the ARA had constructed a "completely false story" and that the article was a "serious and intense violation of the right to honor."

In 2022, Flecha and Soler sued theNow Balearic Islands and this journalist for the same article, which had also been originally published in theNow Balearic Islands, and they also claimed 30,000 euros for "moral damages." Both lawsuits are still active.

An internal investigation

Despite these demands, the UB's internal investigation twenty years ago already raised enough doubts about the research group led by Flecha and Soler to bring it to the attention of the Prosecutor's Office. The "prior and confidential information" commissioned from law professor Enoch Albertí and conducted based on interviews with 19 people spoke of "very intense interference in private life" with "a strongly personalistic leadership." The report, to which ARA has had access, stated that the CREA investigation had "revealed" "particularly serious" behavior, such as "making sexual innuendos and, in some cases, engaging in behavior that the affected individuals have experienced as sexual harassment." This statement was made primarily based on the testimony of a victim from whom Albertí had taken a statement.

The report also indicated that the CREA group's operations generated "significant confusion" between the professional and personal spheres of its members, which fostered "conduct of a sectarian nature." He proposed that "a rigorous inspection" be carried out on the functioning of CREA, a financial audit, and even that the UB intervene in the group.

The CREA research group, founded by Ramon Flecha, has been the subject of controversy both inside and outside the university for at least twenty years, but that does not prevent its founder from presenting himself as a Me Too pioneer at the university. It is defined in its three X profiles as the "world's leading scientist in gender violence." Two years ago, in an article in The Newspaper, asserted that it was "an aberration" to allow relationships between students and professors, because "there is a clear inequality of power between the parties and because, if necessary, the students are clearly vulnerable to potential abuse."

The university's code of ethics

Last year the UB modified its code of ethics and included two significant changes. Initially, it went on to classify "sexual-affective relationships between teaching and research staff and students" as "professional malpractice," considering them "clearly asymmetrical" and with a clear "component of superiority." Furthermore, it now states that "academic and academic freedom does not authorize the existence of sectarian organizations" or groups with methods "contrary to fundamental rights." The UB categorically disassociates these changes from the CREA case.

The CREA has not been affiliated with the University of Barcelona since 2020, according to a UB statement, but it still has a website under its domain where the CREA says which has two research groups: the Sociological Theory and Social Impact of Research (TSIR) research group, from the UB School of Sociology, and the Research Group on Education to Overcome Inequalities (GRESUD), from the Faculty of Education of the UB.