Following the protest on the campus square last Thursday, where around 120 attendees called for improved social safety on campus, some of them were able to immediately join the executive board and Student and Educational Affairs (SOZ) for the annual Winter Dinner. The dinner is intended to facilitate an informal conversation between the board, (faculty) student council members and other representatives of student organisations at VU, and was organised this year by SOZ and the University Student Council (USC) in the NU building.
But there was little time for shooting the breeze. Upon arrival, Rector Jeroen Geurts gave a speech about the importance of dialogue, especially now, and said he had heard the VU community when they expressed their pain about the situation on campus. Piotr Jaworski, chair of the Faculty Student Council of Social Sciences and Humanities, then unexpectedly took the floor to express his dissatisfaction with their course of action.
Enforcing rules
In his speech, which Ad Valvas has seen, he said he had lost confidence in the executive board after victims of threats, intimidation and ultimately assault had been reporting incidents for years without there being repercussions for the perpetrators.
‘You ask us to trust you, but we have lost that trust. Until you take concrete steps that show we can start to regain our trust, I have nothing to talk with you about,’ Jaworski said in front of approximately forty attendees. He concluded: ‘Enjoy your evening, because I won’t. And I don’t think I’m the only one here,’ after which he left the room. More than half of those present followed him, leaving the board behind with SOZ and several (faculty) student council members.
Legitimising passivity
Jaworski’s action was not planned far in advance. The idea arose shortly before the dinner, when he read the open letter by rector Geurts on behalf of the executive board on the VU website. In it, Geurts writes that he will continue conversations with student representatives and student associations on campus and will come up with concrete steps for ‘genuine improvement’. Jaworski: “The letter talks about revising the safety policy, but it does not mention the rules that already exist to keep the campus safe, and that they should enforce. Students shouldn’t have to fear sexual harrassment or violence. Having the same student consistently show this behavior is a safety hazard.”
Jaworski told a friend about his plan to walk out, and from there it spread quickly. Ultimately, at the moment itself, people also walked out who had not known about the action beforehand. Jaworski: “I am not an activist; protesting is not part of my character. I don’t want to be disruptive and am always open to dialogue, but I see what the rector calls having a dialogue as a way of legitimising inaction.”
Bullying and violence
A day earlier, the board of the faculty in which Jaworski sits on the student council had also posted a statement on the VU website in which it says it condemns bullying and violence against students from their faculty. ‘Political violence comprises more than individual acts. There are systemic, ideological motives that underpin those acts that also need to be addressed’, the faculty board writes.
The statement comes from that faculty for a reason. The student who was assaulted in Bar Boele, for which two members of the Vrijmoedige Studentenpartij (VSP) were arrested – the case that brought many other incidents of misconduct by VSP to light – studies at the faculty. Jaworski: “This statement is only the first step. The faculty board, the faculty’s sub committee (good translation for ODC?) and the faculty student council are in conversation with each other. But ultimately, this is a problem at central level, not at faculty level.”