Māris Kupčs was one of the lecturers whose name has come to light following allegations of sexual harassment and boundary violations with female students. Earlier, in a conversation with Latvian Television, he said: "I certainly did not commit any acts of a sexual nature. I really deny it. No touching, God forbid."
The representatives of the Academy of Music did not comment further on the dismissal. The police said that an investigation is still ongoing. Māris Kupčs told Latvian Television that he did not know anything about the termination of employment, it was the first he had heard of it, so he could not comment.
It has already been reported that in March this year, following accusations of sexual harassment of female students at the Academy of Music, Māris Kupčs was temporarily suspended from his position as head of the Department of Ancient Music. The maximum period of suspension could have been three months.
At the end of March, the Ombudsman, the State Police, and the Council of the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music (JVLMA) received another petition calling for an assessment of the suitability of the suspended lecturer Maris Kupčs. The application was personally signed by 28 current and former students and faculty members of the Academy, and accompanied by 11 specific signed testimonies about the experience of cooperation with this lecturer, Latvian Television's "De Facto" reported.
The experiences of the applicants range from the very recent past to much further back, a decade or more, underlining that the events were not random.
