The Leiden professor who was discredited last week has been guilty of intimidating and undesirable behavior against female colleagues for “several years”, including sexually transgressive behaviour. There were also earlier signs that something was wrong, but not enough had been done about it. That is what the Leiden Executive Board president Annetje Ottow says in an interview with NRC.
Read the interview with Annetje Ottow: ‘We should have acted sooner’
This is professor of theoretical astronomy Tim de Zeeuw, various sources confirm. There is dissatisfaction within Leiden Sterrewacht, the institute of which De Zeeuw is the former director, about the decision of the university board not to disclose the professor’s name despite his misconduct and not to fire him.
The professor belittled and insulted the women in public. He also abused his position of power as a professor by threatening to damage their scientific careers. President of the Executive Board Ottow acknowledges that in addition to intimidation and inappropriate behavior there was “a component of sexual harassment” by the professor. At least one woman has been “undesirably physically approached” by him, according to Ottow, who says she is in her stomach with the issue. “There was a pattern.” Looking back, she says, insufficient attention has been paid to the position of victims and intervention has been ‘waited too long’. This despite the fact that there have been signals for some time, Ottow says. “They have not been taken seriously enough and have not been taken seriously enough. That touches me.”
De Zeeuw (66) is an internationally renowned professor. After studying astronomy in Leiden, he worked for years in Princeton in the US before returning to Leiden in 1990 as a professor. A role in which he wrote numerous publications and supervised dozens of students and PhD students. In 2003 he became director of the Leiden Observatory and in 2007 he became the chief executive of the European Southern Observatory in southern Germany, a renowned research organization of 16 member states, for a period of ten years. Upon his return to the Netherlands, De Zeeuw was awarded a Knighthood in the Order of the Dutch Lion. In addition to his current position in Leiden, he is also affiliated with the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
No layoff
President of the Executive Board Ottow also mentions the professor to NRC emphatically not by name. “However serious the allegations are, you have to observe the rules of labor law and privacy law.”
When asked why the alleged misconduct for several years did not lead to dismissal, the university states that there are “various reasons for this, including employment law”. Ottow does not want to say more about it. “The advice of the Complaints Committee was to suspend him, given all the circumstances, and to deny him access to our buildings. We followed that advice.” The professor keeps his salary. When asked whether this case is just the tip of the iceberg of what is happening at Leiden University, Ottow says: “I hope not.”
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Interview Annetje Ottow p.4-5
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