Laurens Buijs will not return as a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). That has the court of Amsterdam announced Wednesday. Buijs lost the summary proceedings he initiated, in which he argued that the university had not properly applied the whistleblower policy and demanded to be protected as a whistleblower. According to the court, Buijs’ behavior is not protected within the whistleblower scheme, but goes “beyond all limits”.
Buijs was discredited earlier this year after a controversial opinion article in student magazine Folia, in which he writes that what he considers to be a radicalized ‘woke’ culture threatens his university. According to him, non-binarity is an ’empty hype without a scientific basis’, but there is not enough room to discuss it within the university. He called critics of his anti-woke views on social media “monsters”, “extremists”, “corrupt” and “perilous”.
At the end of last year, he also made a whistleblower report to the university about “serious institutional abuses” at the Faculty of Society and Behavior. The UvA whistleblower policy stipulates that a whistleblower ‘may not be disadvantaged in any way in his position or career and enjoy legal protection’. In April, the UvA distanced itself from Buijs’ statements and decided to suspend him. According to Buijs, that should not have happened.
Misconduct
The Amsterdam court disagrees. According to the court, whistleblowers must only be protected against measures that are a direct result of the whistleblower report. That is not the case with Buijs: the researcher “played man, made very insulting statements and posted portrait photos of his ‘opponents’ on Twitter, with disqualifying texts”. With this behavior he has violated basic rules of conduct, even if the tense situation in which Buijs finds himself is taken into account. “Making a whistleblower report is not a license for misconduct.”
Moreover, Buijs has not shown any self-reflection, the judge concludes. “He has disclaimed any responsibility for the escalation of the conflict.”
Read also: Concerns at the UvA about ‘woke’: ‘Academic freedom is in a major crisis’