University of Amsterdam professor had relationships with students and his staff

The University of Amsterdam professor who resigned last year due to inappropriate behaviour had relationships with numerous students and staff over the past ten to fifteen years. “An eight for a night”, students apparently joked about him.

The professor of law resigned from the University of Amsterdam in November after his faculty launched an investigation into him. Because of the confidential nature of the case, it was decided not to publish any details. The University of Amsterdam and the professor also supposedly signed a declaration of confidentiality.

Abuse of power

However, insiders have now opened up to the Amsterdam Folia. The departed professor apparently had several ‘hierarchically unequal relationships’ with female students and university staff. He often flirted and made ‘inappropriate’ comments. ‘An eight for a late one’, was how students jokingly described him.

For a long time, Professor of labour law Evert Verhulp led the department where the departed professor created an unsafe atmosphere. According to Verhulp, the case made him feel terrible. “I wondered whether I should have seen it, or whether I was just naive.”

Shocking

In an interview with Folia, the current law dean André Nollkaemper calls the report ‘shocking’. “During the period when this behaviour was taking place, the faculty failed,” says Nollkaemper, who was appointed dean two and a half years ago. “The faculty has a responsibility to organise itself in such a way that its ears and eyes are open to such situations. Somewhere along the line, that didn’t happen.”