The League of Iași Students demands the amendment of the Higher Education Law, after the preventive arrest of the university lecturer Alexandru Toader, the son of the former Minister of Justice Tudorel Toader, investigated for rape and other sexual crimes. The organization calls for the introduction of measures to protect students from possible teacher abuses, including the possibility to challenge grades before independent commissions and to record exams. At the same time, the students demand that the members of the university ethics commissions be obliged to notify the criminal investigation bodies when they find possible violations of the criminal law, reports News.ro.
The League of Iași Students expresses its solidarity with the victims of sexual assaults in the university environment and draws attention to the lack of real guarantees to protect students from the abuse of teaching staff.
The organization’s reaction comes after the arrest of the lecturer Alexandru Toader, from the Faculty of Law in Iași, accused of sexual offenses against some female students.
The Student League announces that it will draft a bill to amend the Higher Education Law, which it intends to propose to parliamentarians.
Students demand the right to record exams and challenge grades
Among the requested measures is the introduction of the right of students to contest the marks obtained in any form of examination, in front of commissions that do not include the teacher who made the initial assessment.
The organization also proposes that the oral and practical exams can be audio-video recorded, at the student’s request, so that the recordings can be used as evidence in the event of abuse.
Another request aims to compel university ethics committees to notify criminal investigation bodies when they identify facts that could constitute crimes. Student representatives emphasize that these commissions cannot replace prosecutors.
The League of Iași Students welcomes, at the same time, the decisions of the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași to no longer allow professors Tudorel Toader and Andreea Urda to teach in the upper years of study, in order to avoid contact with potential victims and witnesses, as well as possible influences on teaching and evaluation activities.
“Even if from a legal point of view the lawyer is not confused with the client, from a moral and ethical point of view the defendant’s lawyer should no longer teach or interact with the victims and witnesses, especially when their names are known from the file, and directly or indirectly their statements can be influenced and their dignity can be affected”, states the League of Iași Students.
The organization asks the university to bear from its own funds the possible costs for the resumption of studies by the students who abandoned them as a result of the abuses, as well as the expenses for the psychotherapy programs necessary for the victims, including when they choose specialists from outside the institution.
At the same time, the League of Students recommends that female students, when they are approached by teaching staff and invited to private meetings in an academic context, make audio recordings, in order “to be able to easily prove the facts of the use of the function for sexual purposes by predatory teachers or the blackmail to which they could be subjected”.
The Student League brings back the appointment and promotion of Alexandru Toader
The representatives of the organization remind that in 2019 Alexandru Toader obtained a position as a full-time assistant professor and responsibility for the “Civil Law. General Part. People” course, without competition, by moving from a fixed-term position to a full-time position.
“The movement generated wide controversies in the Iași academic environment and scandalized public opinion at the time, he obtained this benefit as a result of GEO No. 9/2018, considered to be given at the time “with dedication” for the son of the then Minister of Justice, Tudorel Toader, who was suspended from the position of rector”, states the League of Iași Students.
The organization claims that it has warned since the summer of 2021 about the haste with which the promotion of Ionuț-Alexandru Toader to the rank of university lecturer was proposed, given that he would not have fulfilled, at the time, the minimum criterion regarding the publication of the doctoral thesis, provided for by the competition methodology.
“The lack of real guarantees for students is what creates monsters in the university environment”
Alexandra-Maria Niță, president of the League of Iași Students, believes that evaluation mechanisms can create disproportionate power relations between teachers and students, favoring situations of abuse.
“The moment a teacher knows that he can coerce you through the evaluation mechanisms, being aware that your professional and financial future depends on him, this disproportionate relationship is born which, unfortunately, some teachers choose to use in the most terrible ways. Hence a good part of the silence and reprehensible complicity of the majority of the so-called student representatives, beyond their financial dependence on university clans and institutions”, said Alexandra-Maria Nita.
It claims that the introduction of concrete guarantees, such as contesting grades before independent commissions, the right to record exams and transparent mechanisms for evaluating teachers, could reduce the risk of blackmail and sexual abuse.
“It is not the lack of pompous and ideologically instrumented programs that purely declaratively affirm the protection of women that leads to such situations, but the lack of real guarantees for students is what gives birth to monsters in the university environment,” added the president of the Student League.
Alexandru Toader, the son of the former Minister of Justice Tudorel Toader and a lecturer at the Faculty of Law in Iași, was remanded in custody for 30 days, following a decision of the Iași Court of Appeal.
The decision was contested at the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
The university lecturer is being investigated for rape, sexual assault, attempted sexual assault and use of office for sexual purposes. The charges are not a definitive determination of his guilt.
