Sociologist Marius Pieleanu, a professor at SNSPA, announced on Thursday that he is terminating work relations with the university “until the situation is clarified” following accusations of sexual harassment by some former students. Pieleanu who declares himself “horrified” and accuses a “lynching” against him. Snoop.ro revealed, on Monday, the case of Professor Alfred Bulai.
After the revelations of the investigative site Snoop.ro, accusations against Marius Pieleanu, from some former students of SNSPA, began to appear in the public space. Including Ana Birchall, former Minister of Justice, wrote on Facebook that she was sexually harassed by Pieleanu. “I would like to visualize you epidermally”, “I want to make you a star”, “you are too beautiful to be friends”, Birchall wrote on her Facebook page that these were the words that the university professor addressed to her.
Marius Pieleanu said, for Rise Project, that he is leaving SNSPA. Contacted by HotNews.ro, the sociologist stated that he is suspending work relations with SNSPA, until the accusations against him “will be clarified”. “I did not leave the SNSPA, I interrupted the work relations until the situation is clarified. Unfortunately, my perception at least, is that of a public lynching. I did not know that the text of a press material can be made up of comments. These are things that are obvious, but it’s not my profession, just so… I’m not referring to any of your material, in general this is how I’ve seen comments used to upload press content”, said Pieleanu, in the dialogue with HotNews.ro.
He claims that he decided to leave SNSPA for the time being because he does not want to put the university in an unfavorable light and because he wants to defend himself “as a natural person”: “I didn’t even get to notify the rector (…) . I will apply. So that I can defend myself as a natural person from any kind of accusations”, the sociologist argued his decision.
Asked about the accusations brought against him, Marius Pieleanu said that they are very serious things that “we don’t play with” and that any accusation without evidence “cannot be taken into account”. “It is very serious. These are very serious things, I mean we are not playing. Mere assertion in a comment or comments by several people on social media is not evidence. The allegation as such, if not supported by evidence, cannot be taken into account. I am horrified… In my life, I have not conditioned access to the exam or to other types of evaluations to obtain advantages, whatever they may be, let alone the intimate ones. It’s not in my culture. I have been in higher education for 33 years without interruption,” said the sociologist.
However, a new testimony made by another former female student was published Thursday by Rise Project and is confirming all the other previous complaints against Pieleanu.
Alice Iancu, PhD university lecturer, who completed her bachelor’s degree (political science/sociology), master’s degree (political science) and doctorate (political science) at SNSPA in the period 2000-2010, talks about the “deviant behavior” of SNSPA teachers Alfred Bulai, Ștefan Stănciugelu and Marius Pieleanu and says that he also sent an email to the Prosecutor’s Office about these three teachers from SNSPA. She claims that she was “most afraid” of Marius Pieleanu.
“I was terrified of him and everything I heard about him. He is a very calm and calculated guy. The fact that he called us misogynists every week in class was becoming almost a routine.
From him we always learned that women are worse, weaker, more unstable. He used to call single female students in arrears to his office. I also had such a backlog, in “Sociology of deviance”. From my older colleagues I knew what experiences happened in that office. So I positioned myself next to the door, practically stuck to it, and refused to move from there. He told me I was very pretty and asked me if in my personal life I was “deviant” and to what degree. I didn’t answer him. After which, seeing that I had no reaction, he also asked me something about the matter and I gave an answer. In the end he laughed and urged me to be more “relaxed” in the future“, says Alice Iancu.
She also claims that not only did some teachers from SNSPA “know everything that was happening”, but that some of them discouraged and intimidated the students from filing complaints: “A former student, a colleague of mine, who now out in the public space talking about Marius Pieleanu, I assure you that he is not lying. A SNSPA teacher told him to shut up. When I also went to the same teacher and told him about Marius Pieleanu, what I had experienced and what I had heard around me and that I was afraid of him, he told me to shut up.”
Marius Pieleanu, aged 59, is a member of the Association of Sociologists from Romania since 1990, vice-dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences at SNSPA and doctoral university lecturer. He owns the polling company AVANGARDE and is a constant guest on various televisions to analyze political and social topics.