2023-05-17 08:06:00
Seven ex-employees of a professor of medicine at the VUB have resigned because of transgressive behavior, announced Monday evening the Flemish newspaper Het Nieuwsblad. These are doctoral students, researchers and assistants to the professor concerned, a health sociologist. The latter have for some resigned and for others chosen not to renew their contract. All therefore left the professor’s team.
While in March 2020 a first report of the sociologist’s transgressive behavior was sent to the dean, at the time Peter in ‘t Veld, the seven employees find in 2021 that no follow-up has been given to their complaint. Moreover, in January 2021, two researchers left the sociologist’s team and later supported the report once morest the professor: “We have decided to sign a letter with these seven ex-employees in which we reiterate our support for the complaint and wish to be heard on this subject.”, explained one of them in the columns of Het Nieuwsbald. This letter was then sent to the rector at the time, Caroline Pauwels, as well as to the current dean, Dirk Devroey.
The letter might be read by the editorial staff of Het Nieuwsbald and contains the following terms: “We felt abandoned, by our rector, by our dean. As a collective of employees and former employees, we found the courage to join forces. To gather the suffering and denounce the injustice done to us. We want to spare our future colleagues the same ordeal. We thought you would take us seriously. That you would at least listen to what we have to say. A year later, there is still no investigation into why so many victims suffered the humiliation, manipulation, harassment and transgressive behavior of Prof. We hope that as a university you will walk the talk and thoroughly research the number of victims of Professor L’s transgressive behavior..”
The latter then looked into the matter, facing the authors of the letter asking for how long the VUB was going to “abuse their patience”. A “psychosocial risk analysis” is requested, but this is slowed down by the pandemic. Until the analysis, the rector decides “not to take any other measures for the moment”, declaring in her email that the VUB “is studying the matter in depth”.
It was not until March 2021 that the results of the analysis arrived and the VUB declared “soon to communicate on the opinions”, a communication that the employees would still be waiting for at the present time.
In March 2023, the authors of the letter finally received an invitation to meet the rector who took the place of Caroline Pauwels, who died in August 2022. The VUB confirmed that “the case regarding the reports once morest the professor is currently under preliminary investigation”. The reason for this advancement, according to certain sources confided in Het Nieuwsbald, might be a new complaint by a student once morest the sociologist in addition to that of the seven ex-employees.
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“If I see you once more, I’ll kill you”
The professor behind these transgressive behaviors, ML, allegedly “humiliated, manipulated and harassed” his employees, in their words. “If I see you once more, I’ll kill you.” These were the last words the professor spoke to a staff member who had resigned. The latter explained that he felt in danger all the way home, the teacher terrifying him.
In the report made by the seven ex-employees, many reproaches are made to the professor. A too high workload is mentioned: “We had to work for months without taking a single day off. We were told that we weren’t working hard enough. PhD students who started working were constantly broke, he laughed at them if they didn’t understand something”, declares a witness.
In addition, the professor directly attacked his employees: “He didn’t care regarding personal traits. For example, he often blamed me for lacking self-confidence because I had probably been bullied in the past. I must have heard it many times”, explains the witness, giving other examples.
”A colleague who, according to him, was not sufficiently integrated into the group, also had to attend weekly interviews for a psychoanalysis of her personality. He was asked questions regarding the personal lives of colleagues, who is married to whom, who has what children. She had to be able to answer them to prove that she was better in the group. He was also stroking the hair of a colleague in the hallway and then saying to her, ‘If I give you a compliment, will you try harder?’”, he says. The ex-employee also explains that the professor often threatened his researchers with dismissal. “You should know that from 2015 to today, only two doctoral students – and we are talking regarding at least 20 – have completed their doctorate.”
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