You don’t have a dialogue by calling the police on students and staff - Tilburg University

By Lotte Spreeuwenberg and Michiel Bot

Read the Dutch version on ScienceGuide

On the 30th of January, students and lecturers at Tilburg University protested against the Executive Board. They demanded that Rector Wim van de Donk accept an open letter or that he publicly debate with them about suspending partnerships with Israeli universities. The Executive Board was unwilling to comply with either demand. 

Instead, the building where the board offices are located was closed by security. The symbolism could not have been greater: students and staff stayed for hours in front of a closed door. They decided not to budge until a date for a public dialogue was promised. The CvB had the police clear the university building: a group of students and teachers was evicted by some 20 officers.

The students and lecturers protested against the board's decision to ignore the advice of their own advisory committee. The Advisory Committee on Collaborations was set up in the spring of 2024 to investigate institutional collaborations between Tilburg University and Israeli universities. Last December, the committee advised to suspend the ties.

The committee found that Israel's partner universities are closely intertwined with the Israeli government, military and arms industry in a ‘military-university complex’. The committee also concluded that Israeli universities uncritically ‘make their expertise available to the Israeli government's policy and actions in Gaza' in which 'gross and systematic human rights violations are plausible'. Finally, the committee concluded that the partner universities fail to take responsibility that comes with ‘their role as witness and bystander to human rights violations in Gaza’.

When asked by the Executive Board what (moral) responsibility Tilburg University has in this matter, the advisory committee was clear: suspend institutional ties. The committee noted that ‘Tilburg University, as a moral actor, cannot remain passive and must take action’.

The advice will not be followed. The Executive Board indicated last week that it wanted to enter into talks with the partner institutions first, as it would not be able to break the partnerships unilaterally. Disregarding the advice is a slap in the face not only for the four professors who conducted thorough research to arrive at the advice, but also for the students who have been asking for action for months. 

In ignoring the advice, the Executive Board is also breaking a promise. Previous talks with and demonstrations by students were appeased with the promise of an advisory committee and actually following the advice that would result from it. After months of waiting for an advisory report and then another month and a half of waiting for response, the board is now breaking that promise. It is only natural that students are angry and feel unheard. 

Previous attempts at dialogue came to nothing. Invariably, students were kept at a distance or ignored. Students invited the rector, but on several occasions he did not show up. In negotiations during the demonstration, the board said it only wanted to engage in talks in a reasonable manner but felt too much pressure from the demonstration. Feigning a ‘reasonable’ ‘desire for dialogue’ without actually engaging in one in any way is a pure exercise of power.

Refusing to engage in dialogue with your own students and teachers and using all possible means - including police deployment - to prevent (public) dialogue poses a danger to academic freedom. That academic freedom was already under pressure: just a few months ago, the university received a lobbyist from an American pro-Israeli organisation who came to complain about a reading group in which lecturers and students read Palestinian poetry together. In November, security guards removed from one of our offices a poster calling for solidarity with student demonstrations for the suspension of institutional ties with complicit Israeli universities, while posters on other issues of university politics were allowed to remain. 

Accepting a letter or engaging in debate is a low bar, but all the more an important signal when even that bar is not met. As employees at Tilburg University, we are shocked that our employer would rather send the police on us than be open to debate. Even more than that, we are furious that a university literally and figuratively closes its doors to its own students, fails to honour agreements with students and refuses to engage with students. A university is there for its students, you don't call the police on them. 

Signed by

Michiel Bot, Associate professor law

Lotte Spreeuwenberg, Lecturer philosophy

Alfred Archer, Associate professor philosophy

Christiaan Boonen, Lecturer philosophy

Tim Christiaens, Assistant professor philosophy

Adriana Clavel Vazquez, Assistant professor philosophy

Jimena Clavel Vazquez, Assistant professor philosophy

Thomas Decreus, Lecturer philosophy

Ties van Gemert, PhD candidate philosophy

Siba Harb, Assistant professor philosophy

Hanne Jacobs, Associate professor philosophy

David Janssens, Lecturer philosophy

Phillip Paiement, Professor law

Seunghyun Song, Assistant professor philosophy