SSEES Director Steps Down Following Harassment of Student
Photo: UCL
Professor Richard Mole has stepped down from his position as Director of the School of Eastern European and Slavonic Studies following a viral video, in which he told a UCL student ‘No man would want to touch you’ whilst she was protesting at a SSEES event in November 2024.
In an email to SSEES students sent on 4 February, Mole announced he will be resigning from the role ‘for now’, ‘so that SSEES education and business can continue without distraction’. He apologised for his behaviour, saying, ‘I want to use this opportunity to fully acknowledge how unacceptable my actions were, to express that I deeply regret them and to apologise’.
At the time of the incident, the UCL student was taking part in a protest for Palestine at a SSEES event with the Czech Foreign Minister. Mole followed the student down a corridor, and can be heard calling her a ‘coward’, and saying ‘You should be ashamed of yourself’. After she repeatedly said ‘Please don’t touch me’, he said, ‘I’m not touching you. I wouldn’t want to touch you. No man would want to touch you’.
A number of UCL societies called for Mole’s resignation, including the Students for Justice in Palestine Society (SJP), who said ‘his employment at @ucl must be terminated. Anything less would be a blatant endorsement of Islamophobia and misogyny at UCL’. The video, which was posted on UCL Stands for Justice’s Instagram on 27 January, has been reposted numerous times by UCL students and pro-Palestine accounts.
At the event, which was held on 15 November 2024, the Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský was due to speak about the war in Ukraine when protesters began chanting ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!’, and ‘Free, free Palestine!’. (The Czech Republic has strong ties to Israel, and Lipavský has personally expressed his support). Police arrived at the event shortly after, and in the video, one officer says, ‘This is a private venue, we’re allowed to use force to remove you’.
The email, sent by SSEES Comms on behalf of Mole, is simply titled ‘Apology’. It is currently unclear whether Mole’s resignation is a permanent or temporary measure. Professor Simon Dixon will act as interim Director for the rest of Term 2, and there will be ‘further details of this arrangement’ to follow.