Fired Groningen researcher Susanne Täuber now a UvA guest researcher
German researcher Susanne Täuber, who was fired two months ago after much controversy as associate professor at the University of Groningen (RUG), is now a guest researcher (affiliated fellow) at the UvA. She has been given academic accommodation in the political sociology section of the UvA.
Dean Agneta Fischer of the Faculty of Society and Behavior confirmed Täuber’s appointment, but made no further announcements. Täuber was fired from the RUG in March this year after an affair that began back in 2019 and caused much controversy.
On May 30 of that year, she published an article titled “Undoing Gender in Academia: Personal Reflections on Equal Opportunity Schemes.” The article was, as usual, peer-reviewed, and thus found to be of good quality.
Nevertheless, it sparked an administrative controversy at Groningen University because Täuber had used her own work experiences for this research as a Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the RUG’s Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB). She concluded in the article that programs designed to advance women can actually hinder them. It was the beginning of a major upheaval that lasted for years and involved harassment and social insecurity, Täuber - a social psychologist with a doctorate from the German University of Jena and employed at the RUG for more than 13 years - told Groningen university magazine UKrant two months ago.
Täuber was no longer eligible for promotion and work was made increasingly difficult for her.
Inappropriate and harmful
Her superiors and administrators considered her publication “inappropriate and damaging to the university,” according to an e-mail from which UKrant quotes. The matter escalated, Täuber became ineligible for promotion, had to publish in “higher journals,” and work was made increasingly difficult for her. She herself believed that her academic freedom was being curtailed, but the RUG believed that labor relations had been disrupted, after which she was fired.
There was a lot of fuss on social media and a petition from employees and students to keep her at the RUG, but to no avail: Täuber was fired and her dismissal was confirmed by a judge last March, who ruled in favor of the RUG that labor relations had been disrupted. “If you report inappropriate behavior or an unsafe working environment, your supervisor can claim that you have disrupted labor relations. And so then you are screwed,” Täuber responded in the media.
She has now found academic accommodation at the UvA, where, incidentally, a similar issue is at play concerning academic freedom and disrupted labor relations: the Buijs issue. That issue also revolves around academic freedom or the lack thereof and the disrupted labor relations that can result from that discussion. A special UvA committee is currently investigating the Buijs issue, which, incidentally, has taken the case to court, which will rule on it on June 5.
