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1 October 2024

Campus
& Culture

How people were pushed out at the Faculty of Law

For years, the Criminal Law department has been plagued by an unsafe work environment. Associate Professor Klaas Rozemond became a victim of this environment, though he was certainly not the only one. A confidential report mentions poor leadership within the department and the long-term dysfunction of a faculty administrator. To date, no one has intervened.

On November 24, 2022, Criminal Law Associate Professor Klaas Rozemond is approached by the head of the Criminal Law and Criminology department after a meeting. Anonymous reports have been made claiming that he has “possibly acted harmfully” towards younger colleagues, she says. She also mentions that she has reported these anonymous complaints to the faculty’s managing director.

For Rozemond, this marks the beginning of a rollercoaster through an alternate reality. Whatever he does to try and resolve the situation, it is to no avail. 

Not the first 

Rozemond was well aware that the academic world could be a snake pit. He had worked at VU for over thirty years and knew of incidents that had made the news in recent years at both VU and other universities. Yet he was still shocked at how the section head, department head, and managing director conspired against him, and how the process then became unstoppable and uncontrollable.

“Klaas was simply worked out of the department”, former colleagues confirm, “and that’s an intellectual loss for the entire department.”

Rozemond has since left VU, but he believes that the truth needs to come out and that measures must be taken. “This is in the interest of the colleagues who are still there and ultimately in the interest of the faculty and the entire VU”, he says.

The Criminal Law Department
The Criminal Law Department at VU has around twenty staff members. Since last year, it has been a separate department. Before that, Criminal Law and Criminology formed a single department, with Criminal Law as a section of that department.

The professor who was the section head, became the department head last year. As of the new academic year, she is no longer employed at VU.

The former department head, who also works as a lawyer at Pels Rijcken, continues to work one day a week at VU. She is still part of the administration of the Criminal Law Department.

As of February 1, 2024, the Faculty of Law has a new dean. The managing director remains the same person. 

It was only when he found himself in trouble that Rozemond discovered that he wasn’t the first. Several colleagues had already left due to conflicts without him knowing.

Others before him gave up earlier, but Rozemond did not. Meticulously, he built a file where he kept emails, regulations, agreements, and records of meetings and investigations (in possession of Ad Valvas). 

Fabricated allegations 

Back to the conflict between Rozemond and his superiors. After the anonymous report in November 2022, several conversations followed, concluding that there had been no harmful behavior on Rozemond’s part. Problem solved, one would think. 

Rozemond was ordered to undergo a ‘performance improvement plan’ 

Still, the situation escalated further. In April 2023, Rozemond received a written warning from the managing director, instructing him to enter a “performance improvement plan” due to verbal aggression (warning in possession of Ad Valvas). “During meetings and research/jurisprudence lunches, we observe behavior that is perceived as disqualifying and verbally aggressive”, the letter states. It further mentions: “Despite these conversations [held between November 2022 and February 2023, Ed.], we note that the behavior has not changed.”

However, Rozemond has not attended any meetings or lunches with the Criminal Law section since December 2022. Several former colleagues confirm this. This can only mean that the observations of verbal aggression are fabricated.

This way of operating is not new within the faculty: previously, employees had been discredited because others supposedly had issues with their behavior. In those cases, the opinions of others also turned out to be fabricated or distorted.

The section head, later the head of the Criminal Law department, insists that the observations were not fabricated but does not explain how she came to them. 

Yelling sesion 

Rozemond objects against the warning, but the managing director dismisses that. Shortly thereafter, he is called in for his annual review, where the section head and department head push for a ‘performance improvement plan’.

“An employer can only impose a performance improvement plan after a thorough investigation of the facts, and that hasn’t been done, even after I requested it”, says Rozemond. He refuses to enter the improvement plan and reports the issue to the university’s executive board, which sides with him. The warning is deemed “insufficiently substantiated” and has to be withdrawn by the faculty. This happens in July 2023, but the matter is still far from resolved.

Meanwhile, Rozemond isn’t the only one in the department experiencing conflict. People are constantly leaving, some amid severe disputes. In the summer of 2022, eight out of twenty people leave the Criminal Law department. 

A PhD student mentions several incidents of the unsafe work atmosphere 

In July 2023, a PhD student gives a farewell speech in which he mentions several incidents related to the unsafe working environment.

“Everyone held their breath during that speech”, says an anonymous source. “You could see the stress increasing in the section and department heads. When the PhD student finished speaking, the department head said she didn’t recognize what he was describing, and that was that.”

But after the meeting, the section head went to the PhD student’s office and yelled at him for several minutes. It could be heard throughout the hallway. Several colleagues were very upset by the incident.

It happened just before the holidays. At the start of the new academic year in August 2023, the incident was left hanging in the air, unaddressed. In the meantime, the section head who had yelled had been promoted to department head.

When asked about the incident, the section head said she had “raised her voice” and that it was later resolved. According to our sources, the only thing she said afterwards was that someone had crossed her boundaries, and she had reacted accordingly. 

VU is summoned 

Rozemond was set to teach several courses in the new academic year, but since he had been largely absent from the department the previous year and several new colleagues didn’t know him, he sent an email to everyone in August 2023 mentioning the withdrawn warning.

In response, the managing director threatens to suspend him (“from all your duties within VU”, email in possession of Ad Valvas).

In early September, Rozemond files a complaint with VU’s Disputes Desk against the managing director. At the end of September, the desk dismisses the complaint, stating it was merely a labor dispute.

Social insecurity at universities
According to a report by the Labor Authority, 54% of staff have experienced some form of undesirable behavior in the past two years, and 69% have witnessed colleagues facing problems. This involved instances such as bullying, intimidation, or discrimination. Former Education Minister Dijkgraaf allocated millions for improving social safety and considered establishing a national reporting center, though it has not yet been implemented. 
An October 2022 investigation by Berenschot into VU concluded that, while procedures and regulations are in order, the issue of social safety in practice requires attention. Employees still experience significant barriers to reporting incidents. 

The fact that various people in the Law department had had intense conflicts with this managing director over the years and had tried various routes – from dispute committees to confidential counselors, emails to the executive board, and meetings with the director of Human Resources (one person even received an apology), apparently did not matter. 

‘They all thought it was awful, but no one intervened’ 

“People at various levels knew about it”, says a former employee, “and they all thought it was awful, but no one stepped in.”

Rozemond has now hired a lawyer and in October 2023 demands compensation from VU for emotional damages and legal costs. Initially, VU refuses to pay. In November, Rozemond’s lawyer sends VU a summons to bring the case before the subdistrict court, which would make the matter public, but it doesn’t come to that.

In mid-December 2023, Rozemond and VU reach a settlement, with VU paying him €28,150 for legal costs and emotional damages, thus avoiding a court case.

Rozemond has since resigned due to the affair and secured a new position at the University of Amsterdam, starting February 1, 2024. Seeing that the social insecurity at his former workplace continues, he files a whistleblower report with VU’s Supervisory Board in February. 

‘Long-term dysfunction’ 

The Supervisory Board assigns the case to investigative firm Bezemer & Schubad, which conducts a confidential cultural investigation that is not specifically focused on determining the truth in Rozemond’s case but on the general working atmosphere based on the experiences of the 14 interviewees (report in possession of Ad Valvas). 

‘A cultural investigation is fine, but it’s more important that the truth comes out’ 

This irks Rozemond: “A cultural investigation is fine, but it’s more important that the truth comes out.”

Despite this, the conclusions of the report (in possession of Ad Valvas) are telling: ‘The working culture and social safety within the Criminal Law department need attention’, the investigator writes.

‘The experienced social insecurity stems from poor leadership’, the report continues.

This poor leadership has two causes, according to Bezemer & Schubad. First: ‘The almost unanimously cited individual dysfunction of one particular official’ (the managing director), which, according to the report, ‘has been systemic, in that the dysfunction has persisted for a long time without intervention from higher levels.’

Second: ‘The phenomenon of inexperienced and untrained managers who lack the competencies to fulfill their roles and are insufficiently guided.’ 

Still, the Bezemer & Schubad investigator does not consider the situation a public misconduct case under the Whistleblower Protection Act. The reason is not explained. 

Self-invented criterion 

The Supervisory Board echoes this twofold conclusion. In a clarification letter dated June 20, 2024, it states that the identified problem of social insecurity is broader than a labor conflict. However, the Board also concludes that Rozemond’s report “does not concern a suspicion of wrongdoing under the VU Whistleblowers’ Regulation.”

The main argument in the letter: ‘There is no serious danger to the (imminent) continuity of the organization’ (letter in possession of Ad Valvas).

Rozemond has since reported the matter to the House for Whistleblowers. “The Supervisory Board uses a self-invented criterion that appears nowhere in the law”, says Rozemond. “It can’t be that there is only misconduct if the continuity of the organization is at stake.” 

Whistleblowers versus confidentiality
In the settlement of his dispute with VU, Rozemond signed a confidentiality agreement. 

However, according to the Whistleblower Protection Act, whistleblowers have the right to make a matter public if the wrongdoing persists. According to Rozemond, this is the case here. 

Former Minister Dijkgraaf and former VU rector Vinod Subramaniam have also stated that it is undesirable for confidentiality obligations to apply in matters of social insecurity. Such confidentiality agreements are invalid in these cases, Subramaniam said in 2020 in response to an open letter from staff. 

Additionally, Rozemond filed a complaint with the Dean of the Bar Association against the former department head. Alongside her work at VU, she is a lawyer and partner at the law firm Pels Rijcken (which itself came under scrutiny a few years ago due to inadequate social safety in the workplace). Lawyers are required to conduct themselves properly even in secondary positions. “Fabricating observations is not part of that, I think”, said Rozemond. This case is also ongoing. 

Problem remains unsolved 

As of this academic year, the Criminal Law department has a new head. Additionally, there is a new dean. However, anonymous sources state that the issue of insecurity has not been resolved. “The managing director is still in place, and the new department heads have operated within the old structure for years and, at the very least, have been bystanders”, says one of them. 

You need perseverance to fight university power structures 

Rozemond’s story shows that you need perseverance if you want to fight university power structures. Staff members who are dependent on their superiors for their careers – and who isn’t in academia? – would have given up long ago. But Rozemond is 63, unafraid, well-documented, and has a strong sense of justice.

That makes him a difficult opponent for VU. While Rozemond himself may not benefit from it anymore, his successors might gain from his persistence. 

Accountability

For this article, Ad Valvas reviewed the entire file that Klaas Rozemond compiled during his labor dispute. This included the written warning issued to Rozemond by the faculty administration, the settlement agreement between Rozemond and VU, the investigative report prepared by Bezemer & Schubad, and the response from the Supervisory Board. 
In addition, Ad Valvas anonymously interviewed several (former) employees who corroborated the atmosphere of social insecurity at the law faculty. 

VU’s response

Providing a socially safe work and study environment is of paramount importance at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The executive board and leaders at all levels work to ensure that our campus is a place where people can work together harmoniously and with enjoyment. Just like in broader society, we too face situations where students and staff feel unfairly treated. When such discussions are necessary, they can sometimes be accompanied by tensions. 

VU offers help and support for such situations through, for instance, ombudspersons, confidential advisors, and mediators. Their methods are laid down in procedures to ensure they act objectively and carefully toward all parties involved. VU strives to learn from every incident and continuously improve. 

The situation in question primarily occurred in 2022/2023. There were extensive conversations and correspondence between the parties involved. Furthermore, as part of the procedure, a confidential external investigation was conducted. A labor dispute arose with the person involved, who decided to leave VU at the beginning of 2024. As a result of this conflict, we have identified organizational lessons and have ensured that they are taken seriously and addressed appropriately. With this, we thought we had concluded a difficult process with good mutual agreements. 

It pains us that now other (former) VU employees are being attacked personally and publicly, without them having chosen this. Names have been linked to a confidential and anonymized report by Ad Valvas. Publishing about this without understanding the context, including how the report was compiled, creates a skewed image and leads to unjust conclusions. Moreover, VU finds it difficult to defend itself, as we wish to honor the confidentiality agreements made. We cannot communicate more about this, as it directly impacts the privacy of the employees involved. 

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