The University of Groningen has issued a correction to an email announcing a lecturer’s removal from a course, following a court ruling on 9 September. The dispute centres on what the university told students about the allegations and the lecturer’s repeated requests for an opportunity to respond.
The lecturer first joined the UG in 1973. After retiring in 2015, he continued teaching within the Faculty of Science and Engineering. His involvement in a course ended after students raised concerns in November 2025 about his remarks and behaviour.
An email that went beyond announcing a change
On 1 December 2025, the programme director informed students that the lecturer would no longer teach the course. The message referred to earlier concerns and suggested that arrangements intended to protect students had not worked as intended. The programme proceeded with his removal without first investigating the allegations.
The email also described the confidential character of the complaints as an obstacle to assessing them properly within the teaching block. That left a tension at the heart of the message: it acknowledged that the allegations were difficult to evaluate, while giving readers the impression that the lecturer’s improper conduct had already been established.
According to the court’s assessment, the university should not have created that impression.
Requests for information and a chance to respond
No investigation subsequently took place. At the court hearing in August, the lecturer said recordings of the classes were available, but the university had not reviewed them.
He had repeatedly sought details of the allegations and a chance to give his account. In April, he asked specifically for anonymised versions of the complaints.
The university argued that he no longer had an employment contract or another formal legal relationship with the institution and therefore could not claim access to its internal personnel procedures or a hearing. It also said that students’ privacy and safety prevented it from disclosing information about individual complaints.
Those were the UG’s explanations for its handling of the matter. They did not resolve the judge’s concern about an email that appeared to present unexamined allegations as settled findings.
The disputed history of his teaching role
Earlier complaints also formed part of the case. In 2021, the faculty board received concerns about comments the lecturer had made in class. He discussed them with the vice-dean that November and continued to be involved in teaching afterwards.
The university maintained that it had stopped him from teaching in 2021 and that his work in 2025 had taken place without permission. The judge found that the UG had not sufficiently supported that version of events.
The lecturer had retained a university account and access pass, continued to appear on the timetable and remained involved in the programme for another four years. Those circumstances mattered when assessing the university’s claim that he had been teaching without authorisation.
A correction, a deadline and legal costs
The ruling required the UG to correct the email within 48 hours. Failure to comply would trigger a penalty of €500 per day, capped at €10,000. The university has since issued the correction.
The daily penalty was attached to compliance with the order; the stated maximum should not be described as a €10,000 payment that the university has already made. Separately, the UG was ordered to cover almost €1,900 in legal costs.
A university spokesperson described the case as exceptional and said the institution would review how it had dealt with the complaints.
Why the wording matters for students
The ruling highlights a distinction that matters whenever a university responds to concerns about teaching: receiving a complaint, changing a teaching arrangement and establishing misconduct are different stages.
A correction should not, by itself, be taken as proof that students fabricated their concerns. Equally, a decision to remove someone from a course is not sufficient evidence that every allegation has been established. The issue described in this case was the gap between what the university had investigated and what its message appeared to conclude.
For students reading an institutional email, the useful questions are whether the university is describing a report, an interim decision or a completed finding—and what process supports that description. Taking concerns seriously and communicating uncertainty accurately are both part of maintaining trust.
