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The Minister of Universities, Manuel Castells, visited the University of Barcelona yesterday in the second of its stops - after the University of the Basque Country - of The Minister listens , a roadshow through the Spanish campuses from which he wants a new University Law to come out . Throughout the day, he met 56 people (if the rector is included), but did not meet with representatives of the constitutionalist S'Ha Acabat! and Universitaris per la Convivència , which defend the interests of non-independent students and professors.

Members of these groups reproach the minister for not receiving them and attribute it to "his profile aligned with the separatist theses." “There are universities where the fundamental rights of their students are violated and the minister has not wanted to contact these people. It has not had the smallest detail. Maybe it was not so much to agree with us, but to make a gesture, to try to approach positions, ”complained Alex Serra , of S'Ha Acabat!

According to a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Universities, Castells met with 19 members of the teaching and university staff (five deans, two vice-deans, a master coordinator, two department directors, four union representatives, a professor, an added professor, a full professor, a reading teacher and a reading teacher); with 11 students; with 16 members of the administration and services staff (nine civil servants and seven labor officers), and with nine researchers.

Why was there no place for representatives of these two groups? The spokeswoman explains that it was the University of Barcelona that organized "the composition" of the groups. «From the Ministry we get in touch with the universities, which self-organize the commission of their sessions. We propose the sessions that we believe are suitable so that all the groups that inhabit the university can speak. We do not get into the composition of the groups, because we consider that it is the university itself, and its groups, that must define it, ”he said.

At the University of Barcelona they responded that the agenda was designed "halfway" between the campus and the Ministry, as the Castells team "expressed interest in having represented", for example, "all categories of permanent and non-permanent IDPs" , «The group of associates» and «union representation», as well as «for dealing with academic issues, libraries and human and financial resources».

"There is no request"

The UB spokeswoman added that if they did not invite Universitaris per la Convivència and S'Ha Acabat! it was because «there is no request for a meeting of these two groups» and because «S'Ha Acabat!, having no representation among the students in the Student Council , would not have met the criteria used to make the selection».

In these groups they considered that, if Castells had really had an interest, they would have made a hole for them. "But it has become clear that he does not want to reverse the situation and is more interested in promoting nationalism on campus," Serra said. «We are very concerned about the neutrality of the university in Catalonia. We did not know that the minister was coming and we have a lot of interest in talking with him, especially considering that his predecessor, Pedro Duque, gave us his support, ”added Maribel Fernández Alonso , spokesman for Universitaris per la Convivència.

Both associations have gained much relevance in public opinion in recent years. The members of S'Ha Acabat !, who received the prize of the Hay Right Foundation on Wednesday, have suffered a dozen attacks, accusations and other harassment since 2018 in order to defend constitutionalism on Catalan campuses. Universitaris per la Convivència, among other things, collected more than 1,200 professors' signatures against the political positioning of the university faculty against the sentence of the process .

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  • Manuel Castells
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