SNSPA Reports 10 Ethics Complaints Against Alfred Bulai, 2 Against Marius Pieleanu

By Romania Journal Last updated Aug 5, 2024

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The Ethics Commission of the National School of Political and Administrative Studies (SNSPA) registered 10 complaints regarding the behavior of Professor Alfred Bulai, following the Snoop.ro investigation, which revealed allegations of sexual abuse. Two other complaints were before the SNSPA leadership regarding the professor and sociologist Marius Pieleanu, also accused of sexual harassment.

“Ten notifications were submitted to the Ethics Commission of SNSPA, which were formulated by the rector of SNSPA and by nine former students”, SNSPA said, on Monday, in a press release with reference to the case of Alfred Bulai.

Two other letters, this time focusing on Marius Pieleanu, were addressed to the leadership of SNSPA.

“Separately from those mentioned above, there are two more letters addressed by teaching staff from the Faculty of Political Sciences, respectively members of the SNSPA Student Council, to the SNSPA management, who ask the Ethics Commission to self-report in relation to Professor Marius Pieleanu, based on information appearing in the public space. The rector of SNSPA sent the two letters to the Ethics Commission for analysis”, the SNSPA press release states.

The representatives of the university say that the members of the Ethics Commission have taken over the referrals and are going to “go through all the legal steps until they are resolved”.

“The University Ethics Commission acts independently from any other structure or person within SNSPA. The members of the Commission have the obligation to maintain confidentiality and equidistance from the parties involved in the case, being forbidden to express, in the university space of the SNSPA or outside it, any preliminary information“, according to the previously cited source.

SNSPA conveys that it will not pronounce publicly until a conclusion of the Ethics Commission. “After analyzing the files and deliberating, the Ethics Commission will adopt a decision, which will be sent to the management of SNSPA and the parties involved. Also, the decision of the Ethics Commission will be published on the official website of the university, snspa.ro”, SNSPA representatives say.

Journalists from Snoop wrote that Bulai also called female students to the terraces to discuss their performance in class, but asked them questions about their sex lives. He also talked to them for four hours about how a woman should behave, so that the man “feels strong”.

According to Bulai’s statements to the girls, female students must be “sexy”, have the courage to “expose their bodies”. “If I tell you to undress, do you undress?”, the teacher can be heard on a recording obtained by Snoop.

The victims audiotaped Alfred Bulai, and Snoop made a 20+ minute film of these recordings, the girls’ video statements, and Bulai’s reaction.

Alfred Bulai applied for retirement from SNSPA last week, after the publication of the article on Snoop.ro in which he was accused of sexual abuse. The information according to which Bulai applied for retirement was confirmed for HotNews.ro by rector Remus Pricopie. “Yes. Retirement is the unilateral decision of the employee. The application is submitted to the Pension House. We continue the procedures”, said Pricopie.

Sources from the university area say that with this move Bulai is trying to avoid the internal investigation of the University, only that, as rector Pricopie also says, the request should have been submitted to the Pension House.

Starting in 2001, Alfred Bulai (61) was for 14 years the vice-dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences within the SNSPA, with a short break between 2006 and 2008, during the Călin Popescu Tăriceanu Government. He was then appointed president of the Agency for Governmental Strategies (ASG), a position with the rank of secretary of state.

In 2016, he was appointed by the PSD as a member of the Board of Directors of TVR, a position he held for one year and six months. In the same year, he became the director of the Department of Sociology, a position he still holds today.

In this capacity alone, he won from SNSPA, until 2022, over one million lei, according to his wealth declarations.

Over time he coordinated projects for the World Bank and the University of Bucharest. He is the author or co-author of numerous sociology volumes, including the 11th grade textbook.

The websites Rise Project and Investigatoria.ro published on Thursday the testimonies of several women, former students to whom Marius Pieleanu was a teacher at SNSPA, whom they claim had abusive behavior.

Pieleanu announced that he was terminating his employment with the university “until the situation is clarified” following accusations of sexual harassment by some former students.

Marius Pieleanu (59 years old) 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.

The prosecutor’s office begins hearings in the Alfred Bulai case

At the same time, prosecutors from the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the 1st District Court will start, this week, hearings in the file in which several female students from SNSPA accuse Professor Alfred Bulai of sexual harassment. The prosecutors will call witnesses to hearings, including teachers from the management of SNSPA, but also the injured persons, namely the students who complained to Alfred Bulai.

Until now, the Prosecutor’s Office has received around 20 emails with complaints and notifications, after the prosecutors urged the students from SNSPA who were victims of Professor Alfred Bulai to contact the investigators at the email address pj_sector_1@mpublic. ro.

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