The National Civil Service Commission (CNSC) decided to dismiss the complaint for sexual harassment against grade 5 Mathematics teacher Martín Sambarino. The teacher was denounced in 2019 by the former student of the Faculty of Sciences, today a doctor in Mathematics, Adriana da Luz, and then summarily, on the recommendation of the University of the Republic, at the hands of the CNSC.
After the analysis of the administrative study, the agency concluded that “the proof of evidence does not show evidence of sexual harassment, taking into account the characteristics of the situation and the relationship that the complainant had with the defendant, of trust and camaraderie over the years. , even time after the episode that gave rise to the complaint”, according to Search.
The definition took as its starting point the Legal analysis of the National Civil Service Office (ONSC) -which evaluates possible cases of dismissal of public officials- and resolved that “regarding what was reported regarding parties and events, to which teachers and students attended, enough testimonies were collected that show that the people who attended these events were not obliged to do so and as adults they decided what they consumed.
The ONSC noted that the report, which included emails and WhatsApp messages, ended without any “verification of authenticity,” Montevideo Portal reported. “The material truth is far from the facts denounced”, expressed the survey of the integrated commission, among others, by the president of the ONSC, Conrado Ramos, the teacher and doctor in Law and Social Sciences, Viviana Pérez and the professor grade 5 of Administrative Law of the Udelar, Felipe Rotondo.
The position of the General Legal Directorate of Udelar concluded, on the contrary, that Sambarino committed a “serious administrative fault” and ratified the harassment. For his part, the Council of the Faculty of Sciences asked the Council to remove him from office.
Sambarino “committed a serious administrative offense inasmuch as he has developed inappropriate behavior for the teaching function he performs and therefore his conduct must be sanctioned,” understood the summary of Udelar.
Other women gave their testimony to Search to ratify the existence of the parties and abusive behaviors indicated, as denounced by da Luz. These were: Soledad Villar –doctor of the same discipline, currently a researcher at New York University– and Pilar Lorenzo –graduated in mathematics, now in Valparaíso, Chile, where she is studying for a doctorate–. Meanwhile, the weekly also collected a comment from Magdalena Rubio, a grade 1 teacher at the Faculty of Engineering, on social networks that also described a situation of abuse.
“Ungrateful” acknowledgments
Sambarino was the tutor of Professor da Luz in her career as a researcher. According to the professor, while she exhibited “excessive trust and closeness” towards him, he marked an “appropriate distance” and “respect”. He also indicated that she does not find an explanation for how the complainant says she is panicked and afraid of the professor, if they have been in contact for more than 30 years for activities of supervision and tutelage of the master’s, doctorate and postdoctoral studies. Da Luz said that she trembled with fear on one occasion.
For him, in “none of these communications can one see a departure from the channel, a single unfortunate comment.” He also stated that the whole situation generated “enormous damage” for the career of the defendant.
The document clarifies: “The thesis that there are many witnesses who do not testify for fear of ‘reprisals’ from Professor Sambarino and ‘his entourage’ (who are not defined in the complaint who are part) is denied by the statement of all members of the mathematical community.
According to Sambarino, he himself came to seek a teaching position at Udelar for the complainant’s partner in 2018, whom he also received in his apartment in Paris. “The complainant is resentful of those who have helped her, not only with the summary”, and “it is enough to examine her current CV-Lattes where she minimizes the University of the Republic, who paid for all her studies. The sum of ingratitude (…) Adriana Da Luz, her partner Andrés Koropecki and Jana Rodríguez Hertz have carried out an international smear and defamation campaign against Professor Sambarino, for which they will respond civilly. Several witnesses realize that the complaint was instigated by a third person (Jana Rodríguez Hertz), with spurious motives.”
Lastly, Sambarino pointed out in his brief that “the removal of the complainant from Udelar” responds to the fact that “she wanted to feel ‘detached’ from the public entities that financed all her training abroad (ANII Pedeciba and Udelar), and thus settling down with his partner in Brazil, after a postdoctoral fellowship in China which –by the way– provided him with the investigation”.
