The crisis at the CES, or the irregularities that were not the same

Graça Capinha, December 24, 2024

Did the current Board of the Center for Social Studies want to get rid of Boaventura de Sousa Santos and thus establish other systems of institutional power and scientific orientation?

Just a few days ago, I left what had been my research center for almost 40 years. My reasons for doing so stemmed from my perplexity, over all these months, at the way the CES management handled the crisis caused by the publication of an enormously offensive article in a Routledge book. What I heard at the last plenary session I attended, which accidentally happened to coincide with the day after the CES founder resigned, left me no choice and is echoed in the communiqué of December 11, 2024, a document that reveals how the current CES Board “resolved” the matter.

The statement says that the external investigations (contracted by the Board and whose content we don't know) have been concluded and that no irregularities have been identified that justify opening disciplinary proceedings, “either because no evidence of possible relevant infringements has been found ...”, or because “the CES bodies do not have statutory disciplinary power over people who are no longer linked to the institution”. Are these two circumstances cumulative or alternative? In other words, if Boaventura de Sousa Santos hadn't resigned, would the CES have gone ahead with disciplinary proceedings? And the question is: on the basis of which “relevant infringements”? And how can a law firm and the CES management substitute themselves for the Public Prosecutor's Office with regard to the other 13 researchers denounced? Even someone who had accused me, in a previous plenary session, of not being a feminist (for talking about the right to the presumption of innocence and the right to be heard, which are normal in any state governed by the rule of law!) ended up asking the same questions, now in a much more concerned tone. Let's remember how it all began: an article, supposedly scientific and supposedly anonymous, blamed Boaventura de Sousa Santos, the Star Professor, for an environment of sexual, moral and labor harassment, abuse of power, extractivism, etc. It also claimed that all this was happening with the collaboration of an Apprentice (Bruno Sena Martins) and a Watchwoman (Maria Paula Meneses). It also took aim at other CES directors, who it accused of “controlling” judges, and accused its feminists of defending feminism out of doors, but doing nothing inside. A huge crisis then broke out at CES and news of a real scandal was promoted on social networks and in the national and international press involving Boaventura de Sousa Santos, whose scientific reputation was being destroyed (I heard about invitations being canceled, his work being banned from being cited in university courses, book contracts being suspended or canceled, etc).

There are, nonetheless, only two possible interpretations of this latest statement from the current CES board. Either the Apprentice and the Watcher were subjected to such coercion that they were unable to resist orders that violated the law and ethics – an absurd interpretation if we look at the scientific and professional curriculum of two researchers, who even held management positions at CES, with a solid curriculum both nationally and internationally. Or, a second, more credible interpretation: neither the Apprentice learned any wrongdoing, nor the Watchwoman covered up any wrongdoing worthy of disciplinary proceedings. But if this is the only credible interpretation, then many questions arise. Why has the current management never defended its Director Emeritus and, on the contrary, contributed to destroying his reputation? Why did it go along with the allegations – never formally presented to this day – of the supposed “victims”, to whom it even apologized after the Independent Commission's report (in which the word “victim” was never even used)? Why all this fury, which went so far as to call a general assembly to decide on the expulsion of its founder? Did the current CES Board want to get rid of Boaventura de Sousa Santos and thus establish other systems of institutional power and scientific orientation? A coup d'état with a legal appearance? If so, we must denounce it and draw consequences and responsibilities from it.

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