Sexual harassment at several European universities: between student mobilization and European, national, university policies

In October 2017, the #Metoo movement affects European universities in different ways, depending on the national context and the degree of previous feminist mobilizations in academia. At some institutions, #Metoo has reinforced already existing movements of feminist student mobilizations, strengthening local and national constraints in terms of fight against gender-based and sexual violence. However, this movement did not produce any particular effects for other universities and did not contribute to the problematization of the issue of sexual violence within universities (even if the movement produced some effects at the national level). This communication will first focus on the difference of appropriation of the #Metoo by European students, according to their countries and universities contexts. #Metoo was not powerful enough to elevate an issue of sexual violence at the same level for all European universities. Additionally, all European HEIs must now adopt a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) to access to Horizon Europe funding. Do these GEPs include the establishment of specific units to address sexual harassment within universities? The reception of this obligation by the European universities seems to vary. The previous mobilization of female students (and national policy) consolidated a belief of a need for a specific unit at the level of university management teams. However, this mobilization does not necessarily support European policy, a "cold" context that may go hand in hand with a strong support for the genesis of such units. In the absence of student mobilizations linked to #Metoo, the resistance to such units can be observed. This communication will then focus on the reception of the GEP obligation to be carried out by European universities, seeking to see the place taken by questions of sexual violence in 4 GEPs, which will be adopted at the end of May 22. A sub-question will deal with the autonomous nature of the fight against sexual violence or, on the contrary, its association with other topics (discrimination, violence, etc.) in the suggested measures. This article is based on in-depth interviews carried out at several European universities with resource persons: University of Porto, Aristotle of Thessaloniki, Ruhr University in Bochum, Bordeaux, Sciences Po, Lodz, and Oulu. These interviews focused on the national post- #Metoo mobilizations, universities’ movements, existence or not of dedicated systems, support from the management teams for their implementation. This article also relates to the subject of general fight against sexual violence embedded within the GEPs of these universities and aims to detect the kind relationship (autonomy or not) concerning the questions of violence and discriminations. These universities belong to the same European consortium funded by the Horizon 2020 call as part of the RESET project (https://wereset.eu/). This article is located at the crossroads of sociology of mobilizations and public action (European, national, localized within universities). It seeks to understand the constitution of the issue of sexual harassment within the academic world and its impact on the control systems adopted in various countries of Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Europe.