A tenured professor who was sacked after speaking out against what she saw as her university’s failure to implement its own equality policy is planning to appeal against her dismissal.
In March, a court ruled that the University of Groningen in the Netherlands could sack Susanne Täuber, a social-psychology and employment policy researcher after it found that there was a “permanently disturbed employment relationship” between the two parties.
The ruling on 8 March, International Women’s Day, sparked a demonstration at the university and an outcry among academics around the world, with more than 3,600 signing an open letter calling for Täuber to be reinstated, saying that she was being “punished for exerting her academic freedom”.
“Firing a scholar who published work that is critical of powerful institutions, including the university itself, sets a disturbing precedent for us all,” they wrote.
On 23 March, University of Groningen students staged a sit-in protesting against Täuber’s firing, and highlighting the lack of “social safety” at the university.
Täuber told Nature that she would appeal against her dismissal, which is due to take effect on 1 May.
“I have until June to say that I am not OK with my sacking,” she says. “But then I will have to figure out who will pay for the appeal as I will be unemployed.”
Täuber, who is German, has worked at Groningen since 2009. In 2013, she was awarded a five-year Rosalind Franklin fellowship, a university scheme aimed at female academics, mostly those who are non-Dutch.
In 2018, she made an official complaint that she had been passed over for promotion, arguing that she had as many published papers and research grants as colleagues who had been promoted above her...
She says that hers is not an isolated case: a survey she undertook at the university found that of 26 employees who had made official complaints of harassment, 16 had reported being further bullied.
Natalie Scholz, a historian at the University of Amsterdam, said the reason Täuber’s dismissal has sparked such anger is that it has made many academics fear similar treatment if they criticize their own institutions. The case has even sparked its own social media hashtag: #AmINext.
Susanne had a tenured position. If a university fires somebody who is well known in that specific field, then it looks like no one is safe … Nobody can expect to be able to speak out,” she said.
“This case shows you cannot rely on university management to help you. We need a body that is completely independent of universities, where you can go to report complaints,” she added.
...Täuber is a member of the Academic Parity Movement, a global campaign to end bullying and discrimination in academia. Morteza Mahmoudi, a precision-health specialist at Michigan State University in East Lansing and the co-founder and director of the movement, says:
“Bullying slows down the evolution of science. Many smart people leave academia and public money gets wasted. And the sad thing is that the outcomes of cases like Susanne’s send a very clear signal to other perpetrators that they will be protected, and a negative signal to targets that they should use the code of silence.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01286-5
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