Flemish Universities under fire for abusive professors

Dozens of students at the universities of Leuven and Ghent testified in a report by VRT tv program Pano about humiliation and harassment by professors. 

For more than a decade, the two universities had received complaints about toxic behavior, as well as tampering with funding. Several students anonymously declare to have discontinued their doctorates due to bullying behaviour. Some witnesses speak of "embellishment of research results" in the report. Doctoral students at UGent speak of "daily tyranny," "abusive language," and "humiliation." 

In 2020, at UGent, 35 reports were made in one year concerning cases of abuse of power. ​ At the KU Leuven, there were 473 registrations of transgressive behavior, although this covers a wide range of topics, including abuse of power, stress and, to a lesser extent, sexually transgressive behavior.

From mails that Pano was able to look into, it appears not only that it is a long-standing problem, but also that the problems were known at the highest level, with virtually no consequence. Students complain about short deadlines for disciplinary procedures and too little external control. In 2019, for example, a Ghent professor was temporarily removed from his function as doctoral supervisor after a negative external evaluation. Nevertheless, he was promoted to full professor. A similar story at KU Leuven: a negative evaluation was changed to a positive one after an appeal. An internal disciplinary procedure against the same professor would have come to nothing last Tuesday because of the statute of limitations.

A dozen students have since hired a lawyer.