Court rules Groningen is free to fire critical lecturer

A court has given the University of Groningen permission to fire Susanne Täuber, an organisational behaviour specialist and long-time critic of its gender equality efforts.

At a court hearing last month, lawyers representing Dr Täuber and Groningen’s Faculty of Economics and Business agreed that their working relationship had deteriorated to such a degree that she could no longer work there.

The dispute began with a 2019 paper in the Journal of Management Studies, in which Dr Täuber said the university’s Rosalind Franklin Fellowship entrenched gender inequality, rather than correcting it, drawing on her personal experiences as a fellow.

In 2021, she co-authored a report for the Groningen Young Academy that found those who complained about harassment or discrimination within the university faced intimidation, while perpetrators were protected. Ukrant, the university’s newspaper, said that while sitting on the university council Dr Täuber often raised issues around exclusion and discrimination.

During the February hearing, the university’s lawyer claimed Dr Täuber put strain on the relationship by accusing two of her managers of discrimination in a non-promotion complaint, adding that she failed to keep agreements and rejected an improvement process, local media reported.

On 8 March a district court judge found that her firing was justified by the disturbed working relationship. The university said it had done its best to find a suitable position for her elsewhere at the institution.

Dr Täuber, who sits on the Netherlands’ Advisory Committee on Diverse and Inclusive Higher Education and Research, has become a figurehead for some fighting against discrimination and hostile working conditions in academia.

The group Casual Groningen, which opposes precarity and short-term contracts, launched a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #AmINext? to highlight what they said was the silencing of a high-profile critic. Local media said dozens of people had turned up a protest timed to coincide with International Women’s Day.

Ukrant quoted a university spokeswoman as saying that Groningen did not want to comment on the verdict, or personal matters in general, but that Dr Täuber’s contract would be terminated.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com