Malaga University lecturer suspended for three years for sexually harassing co-worker

First came photographs and messages. Then came passionate, sexually explicit letters, followed by explicit videos of her naked in folders shared online. The recipient, another lecturer in the same faculty at the UMA, had already asked her on several occasions to stop sending him such content and to ensure that any communication between them was confined strictly to professional matters. However, far from complying with his request, she went even further.

He brought the matter to the attention of the deputy rector's office for equality, which led to the activation of the protocol against sexual harassment. The court has now upheld the suspension, considering the facts as constituting a very serious offence of sexual harassment.

The ruling, dated 1 July, allowed for an appeal on a point of law before the Supreme Court. However, as SUR has learned, as the statutory time limit has expired and neither party has lodged such an appeal against the ruling, "it is declared final".

The defendant had been teaching at the UMA since 2009. According to the established facts, in June 2021 she sent the colleague a photograph of one of her legs while she was lying down. He replied, asking her not to send him that sort of image or comment. In August, she sent him another photo of her legs and a close-up of herself. In October, the lecturer insisted: "I need you to respect my request."

The messages were becoming increasingly explicit. In November of that year, the lecturer told her that those messages made him uncomfortable and reminded her that he had the right to decide which ones he wanted to receive. However, a few days later, she sent him a letter in which she expressed her feelings and described intimate displays of affection.

The following day, the lecturer asked to be removed from a shared folder created on Drive for professional collaboration, called 'Articles', as he felt that, now it had come to an end, there was no longer any point in keeping it. "I have tried to leave the shared folder, but I have been unable to do so because you are the administrator," he said.

The man told the deputy rector's office for equality that he remained "deeply affected by this incident". In a separate email addressed to his co-worker, he set out his position in writing. He asserted that he had never given rise to "any kind of romantic or sexual intimacy" and that the relationship between them had always remained within the bounds of what is customary between colleagues.

"You make me feel really uncomfortable and violated," he said, asking her to limit the relationship "to work-related channels" such as his professional email address.

According to the ruling, from 19 January 2022 onwards, the lecturer continued to upload photos and videos of herself naked and of an explicitly sexual nature to that shared folder. In March, the man again sought help from the deputy rector and, almost simultaneously, the woman created another folder, called 'Cloud', where again she uploaded images and recordings of the same nature.

The lecturer requested the activation of the protocol against sexual harassment "as soon as possible", which happened four days later. The court ruling establishes as proven that the content continued to appear until 27 March.

The UMA opened disciplinary proceedings in May 2023, with a ruling on 5 April 2024. In determining the punishment, the UMA took into account "the intensity, repetition and continuity of the conduct" and imposed a three-year suspension from employment with loss of pay.

The suspended lecturer took the matter to court, believing that her fundamental rights had been infringed. In July 2025, labour court No. 2 partially upheld her claim: it upheld the classification of the offence as very serious, but reduced the suspension from three years to six months.

Both the victim and the UMA appealed to the TSJA, which ruled out the infringement of any rights and upheld the penalty the lower court had initially imposed. It found that the UMA had weighed up the circumstances "exhaustively".

According to the court, the penalty was not the most severe possible, given that such an offence could lead to a six-year suspension.

Deputy rector of the UMA Teodomiro López declined to go into the details of the specific case out of respect for the legal proceedings, but defended the institution's response to cases of sexual harassment and maintained that the established procedures had been followed from the moment the university became aware of the events.

López explained that he had become aware of the case in 2024, following a complaint by the lecturer against another member of teaching staff at the school. According to him, it was a "delicate" situation, supported by evidence that he considers "quite clear".

López stated that the UMA had acted "as it should" and emphasised the need to respond swiftly to such situations. "These kinds of problems must be dealt with and addressed. They must not be left to fester for even a minute," he said.

He stated that the university had decided to appeal the first court ruling because it believed that the penalty was proportionate to the seriousness of the facts. According to López, the university sought to defend its position that it had acted correctly from the outset: "We always sought to demonstrate that we had tried to do things properly." That approach, he added, led to the appeal and the subsequent ruling in favour of the UMA.

"I believe the university did what it had to do, as did all of us who had to take action at that time," López stated.

Regarding the frequency of similar situations, López said that, in his three years at the helm of the institution, he has not encountered another case of this scope, nor one that has resulted in a sanction of this nature.

He did admit, however, that there have been other incidents of harassment, although "nothing, not by a long shot, of the same significance as this one". He said that conflicts relating to the workplace are more common.

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