The Leiden Sexual Harassment Case: Update
When I wrote less than a week ago about the case of an (unnamed) Professor at Leiden University being “removed for extremely unacceptable behaviour” I did not know the identify of the culprit but predicted that “it’s just a matter of time before the identity of the Professor concerned is revealed”.
Well, Leiden University still hasn’t officially revealed the Professor concerned but this article by Dutch news agency NRC gives a name: it is Tim de Zeeuw. The Wikipedia page I linked to there has already been updated with:
In 2022, Tim de Zeeuw was suspended from the University and barred from campus after being found to have violated professional conduct policy pertaining to harassment and sexual harassment of women employees. [10] This misconduct was found to have occurred repeatedly over many years. As of 18 October 2022 he is currently suspended (with pay) and allowed to use his university affiliation on his research papers but barred from campus, interaction with students, and all administrative and department responsibilities.
There may be some frantic editing of that page, but the cat is now well and truly out of the bag. I don’t know Tim de Zeeuw personally but he is indeed an eminent scientist in the fields of galactic dynamics and galaxy formation & evolution. For many years he was also Director of the European Southern Observatory, a position of great power and influence. If he has done what he is alleged to have done, however, this distinction counts for nothing and he should be removed from his post. Indeed that should have happened some time ago but I think there may be unresolved legal issues preventing his outright dismissal.
UPDATE: Tim de Zeeuw has now issued a statement, among other things confirming he is the person at the centre of this case but not showing very much in the way of contrition…
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This entry was posted on October 25, 2022 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Harassment Bullying etc, The Universe and Stuff with tags Leiden University, Sexual Harassment, Tim de Zeeuw. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
In the Dark 
October 25, 2022 at 8:50 pm
As someone who does know Tim de Zeeuw (& has written papers with him, though now some time ago), I feel very sad.
First, there are real victims in this matter, and I salute their bravery in coming forward. It will have taken real courage, conviction and endurance to do this.
Second, there is also his wife, who is also a famous astronomer at Leiden. I feel sad for her too.(Almost certainly, this is why Leiden were reluctant to name him).
The concentration of power in astronomy in the hands of mighty Directors, who accumulate awards and prizes and recognition, is just so corrosive.
I have seen friends of mine become Directors.
Very ugly sides of their character emerge as they wield such enormous power over the fates of others — all the more so with the proliferation of PDRAs on insecure fixed-term contracts.
The whole culture of modern astronomy research needs a complete reset. Bullying & harassment are unfortunately rife.
October 25, 2022 at 9:20 pm
This further confirms my aversion to the sort of hierarchical power structures that enabke such behaviour.
October 26, 2022 at 9:21 am
You are always going to have such structures – you will always have senior staff, and less senior staff. And managers. The important thing is to have procedures and processes in place to ensure that such behaviour is identified quickly and dealt with – and use these rather than just pay lip service to them.
Also need staff to be fully confident that any complaint or issue will be dealt with, and it is not the case of ‘there is no point complaining, nothing ever happens’.
October 26, 2022 at 4:59 pm
I also have known Tim de Zeeuw since his early days at Princeton. As a professional astronomer I have met him several times and to tell the full truth, I was quite surprised when I read the news. To comment the previous post: it is not matter of being in a position of power, it is matter of beeing decent human beings. Over the years I have met observatory and instituite directors who wer just wonderful human beings and others (a small minority) which should be forgotten. It is not matter of changing the structure of the leadership in an observatory, it is matter of changing the structure of the society and I think that what has happened in Leiden is a step in the right direction. I congratulate the staff at Leiden for their decision which confirms my deep esteem for the Dutch UNiversity system. Similar cases in other universities (portsmouth is an example) have led to completely different solutions which have penalized the weaker and protected the stronger.
October 26, 2022 at 7:24 pm
I do not agree that it is about changing the structure of society. The idea that with the right management system in place inside a university, or the right society to draw researchers from, then such problems will go away is fanciful. There are better and worse systems and societies, but any system run by humans is susceptible to human weaknesses. If you want to change this sort of thing you need to change the human heart.
October 25, 2022 at 9:42 pm
As regards dismissing de Zeeuw, I suspect the answer is this.
The retirement age for Professors in the Netherlands is 67 (I believe).
De Zeeuw is already 66.
The University could embark on legal action to dismiss him, but it is probably not now worth it in terms of time and money.
The real question that Leiden need to spend money on answering is this : why was this not stopped much, much earlier?
Many on the Faculty must have known or strongly suspected …
And in fact, in bullying & harassment cases known to me, this is almost always the case.
It requires the complicity (or at least silence) of the rest of the Faculty for this to have continued for so long.
October 26, 2022 at 10:59 am
In the Netherlands, the retirement age is now a function of average life expectancy. There are online calculators where you fill in a birthday, and they return the date when the old age pension (called AOW) starts. For de Zeeuw it will start on December 12, 2022.
October 26, 2022 at 10:30 am
A few more notes on the very bad, very sad things at Leiden.
1. The whistleblowers were protected. The culprit was immediately suspended while the investigation was ongoing.
2. From disclosure to verdict took months (May to October). Not years. Given the legal ramifications, this is pretty speedy.
3. The punishment has been significant.
Leiden University is getting a lot of flack … but compared to comparable cases in UK Universities known to me, they look good.
From the facts in the public domain, once the matter got out of the Department, out of the Sterrewacht, then things were dealt with swiftly.
The real questions are for the Astronomy Department.
Why did this take so long to seep out? How many people in the Department suspected or knew and did nothing?
October 26, 2022 at 12:27 pm
I think Leiden University’s hands were probably tied by reason of legal procedure, but I agree that the worst part of this is that it seems to have gone on for so long without anything being done.
October 26, 2022 at 4:09 pm
I agree that the problem is within the department. After all our host here has already covered another instance of abuse by a member of this department in the past, about which nothing was done https://telescoper.wordpress.com/tag/rychard-bouwens/
October 26, 2022 at 5:02 pm
The way to stop this is for the ERC or the NWO to say no more grants to Leiden astronomers until the Department has cleaned itself up.
I guarantee that will be super-effective. 🙂
It should be the same for all Departments which have collectively failed in this way.
Everyone at the Department should not be able to get a grant to hire a PDRA until they have shown that matters have been fixed.
October 26, 2022 at 7:26 pm
Dear Wyn, criteria for the department “having cleaned itself up” would need to be published openly and be verifiable by third parties… a bit like publishing an experimental result.
October 26, 2022 at 5:03 pm
Wyn I believe we refer to the same UK case. I agree completely with your post.
October 26, 2022 at 7:27 pm
“The whistleblowers were protected. The culprit was immediately suspended while the investigation was ongoing.”
This is sadly not correct
The whistle-blowers were made to testify against a commetee, but with Tim De Zeeuw present in the room. Is unacceptable from the Astronomy department to have done so that way
Has Leiden University made a statement yet?
Has ESO? (Max Planck has stripped TDZ of his honorary title of associate professor.)
October 26, 2022 at 12:53 pm
This seems to happen too often in astronomy. Are we worse than other disciplines? Is our gender imbalance at higher levels part of the problem?
October 26, 2022 at 12:58 pm
I have wondered about this myself. Are we worse than other disciplines or do we just see more cases because we’re dealing with it and other fields are not?
Also is the harassment problem because of the gender imbalance problem or is there a gender imbalance problem because of the reputation for harassment?
October 26, 2022 at 1:25 pm
The most worrying thing is only a tiny fraction (I’d estimate between 1 and 10 per cent) of these cases ever get exposed.
The system is completely loaded against those at the bottom who complain.
Many, many people are ready to look the other way, if it involves challenging a powerful man who controls promotion/resources.
The problem is exacerbated by the miserly dependence on fixed-term contracts in Universities.
And Directors are usually protected by an insincere and cacophonous senior management in UK Universities.
Notice how close de Zeeuw was to retiring.
In most UK Universities, the critical report would have been delayed for a few more months until after the Professor had retired.
And then then the University senior management would have speciously claimed that the Professor was no longer in their employment … so there is nothing we can do.
Classic ‘Yes Minister’ style reasoning.
That is why I gave Leiden University quite a bit of credit in exposing this.
In fact, the President of Leiden University’s Executive Board, Annetje Ottow, seems genuinely very upset and appaled at what has happened (judging from her newspaper interview).
October 26, 2022 at 10:03 pm
Giuseppe, I do know the case you are referring to.
There have been a number of bad cases in the UK Universities. The main function of HR Departments in the UK Universities seems to be to prevent disclosure of such awkward and unpleasant facts.
The HR Department in my present University is truly wonderful at its job 😉
Anton, I think my point is that the culture in a Department is the shared responsibility of everyone on the staff (certainly everyone with tenure).
When the culture fails (as seems to be the case in Sterrewacht, Leiden), then it is actually everyone’s fault. In those circumstances, a moratorium on tenured staff at the Department applying for grants for, say, a year is fair.
Not least, there are safeguarding issues. If a Department has failed to safeguard early career researchers, then there needs to be a pause while correct procedures are put in place and checked.
Actually … I think the threat of losing grants will concentrate people’s minds wonderfully 🙂
We will then see a good deal less of these cases.
October 27, 2022 at 10:06 am
We agree that these are not easy matters. Regarding shared culture and tenured staff, I don’t see why a newly arrived staff member, who had obviously been unaware that his or her department head had been directing unwanted and improper attention to a research student (for example), should be disbarred from grant applications.
More generally, I’d be unhappy to see a situation in which you have to resign in order to partake in a consensual, mutually desired relationship with somebody elsewhere in your hierarchy while husband-and-wife teams are accommodated, sometimes as a matter of policy.
One way forward might be for it to be widely known exactly who you can complain to.
October 27, 2022 at 10:46 am
At first, I thought you were “look, squirrelling” with talk of husband-and-wife partnerships.
Then, I thought more about some of the recent bullying in astronomy scandals. They have been at Zurich, Garching, Lund … and now Leiden.
Incredibly, all these institutions have “husband and wife” teams on the Faculty! And the scandal has involved one (or sometimes both) members!
Astronomy departments are usually small, and you can kind of see why this may be a factor. It is much more difficult to rein in the misdeeds of bullying Professor X if his/her partner is also on the Faculty.
An observation only … a very uncomfortable one.
(BTW, it should probably be “partner-and-partner” rather than “husband-and-wife”).
October 27, 2022 at 1:11 pm
I’m happy to accept your generalisation, Wyn, and hadn’t known all of the details you give. Disturbing and sad.
October 27, 2022 at 8:03 pm
Another reminder of my comments policy, which includes:
“…comments may be moderated; anonymous comments and any considered by me to be vexatious and/or abusive and/or defamatory will not be accepted.”
However strongly I feel about this case I cannot allow anonymous individuals to post potentially defamatory allegations.
July 24, 2024 at 1:17 pm
[…] University where the Management decided not to name a professor involved in such a case (who was subsequently identified as Tim de Zeeuw). I thought this was a nonsense, for at least two reasons. The first is that I think someone who […]
July 13, 2025 at 11:16 am
[…] University where the Management decided not to name a professor involved in such a case (who was subsequently identified as Tim de Zeeuw). I thought this was a nonsense, for at least two reasons. The first is that I think people who […]