#Metoo at university

Universities are implicated in the #Metoo discussion just as any other type of organisation. In university, strong hierarchical relationships between scientists, the unequal relationship between teachers and students or the clash of norms ​​between (international) students sometimes lead to serious issues, also at Erasmus University. And even if incidents don’t necessarily have a sexual charge, they can still lead to feelings of insecurity in the workplace.

Petition about sexual violence among students

In early 2019, Vietnamese student Cece Dao launched a petition: she wanted her alleged attacker (a fellow student in the Communication and Media study programme) to be banned from campus. Because the District Attorney had not yet come to a possible prosecution, the university was forced to act as a judge itself: would it ban a student who was not (yet) being prosecuted, or would it let a possible victim of sexual harassment sit in class with her alleged attacker? The university’s Committee on Sexual Harassment, Aggression and Violence deemed the complaint without grounds after months: there was no case of sexual inappropriate behaviour. However, the university still arranged that Dao no longer had to sit in class with her fellow student. Dao didn’t accept this decision and is considering further legal action.

Other incidents

Often incidents in the area of sexual violence or harassment remain behind closed doors, only rarely does someone ring the alarm publicly. In the case of an incident at Erasmus University College, that did happen, albeit briefly. Another attempt to break the silence was #MetooAcademia, a theatre play in which real-life incidents at different universities were re-enacted, without saying where they happened or by whom.

What can you do as a victim?

What can you do if you yourself are the victim of sexual violence? How does the police handle your report? And what if you don’t want to make a declaration to the police, but you still want to talk about it to someone? In the article below we try to answer these questions for you.

Analysis

How can the university change if it is a public secret that sexual incidents occur regularly, but hardly any reports are received at the official committees and confidentiality officers? A lot of thought is given to that question.