Yes, internally Aleph's invitation had already caused a stir, say former association secretary Sem Quaedvlieg, former president Jaap Peterse and his successor Job van Geest. Not in itself so surprising. “This commotion happens every year,” says Peterse. “They always try to hit on a topical social theme, be a little provocative, and draw attention with their invitation.”

Attention they would certainly get - more than the students would have liked. When on Thursday January 18 the invitation went public (including on Facebook), says Peterse, the Senate of the E.S.C was on high alert almost at once. “Really, this was beyond the pale”. He emphasizes, “As an association we don't in principle have anything to do with house parties, and we don't bear any responsibility for them. But in this case we did think, ‘This is something we are going to have to take action on’.” Because, as he puts it, “Apparently it was being regarded as a good prank internally at Aleph, and the members had perhaps been egging each other on a bit - but their social sensitivity was switched off.”

Former E.S.C secretary Quaedvlieg adds, “Obviously the joke was tasteless. But members, among them some women, did understand that it really wasn't anything more than a joke. Some of them wanted to go to the party dressed up as a cactus, in the spirit of ‘can’t touch me’”. “In terms of humor, it takes a lot to offend students and among themselves they can be quite harsh and coarse,” says Peterse.

Read on below the photo.

Whereas, according to Pelgrim, the E.S.C was initially in a phase of denial (and the Senate presumed it had no any responsibility to carry here), at that point alarm bells were already ringing for Pelgrim. He speaks of an awkward combination of factors, of “the whole social attitude towards corps members, the #MeToo storm that was raging just then, all kinds of crap that had already been going on for a year at other corps in the Netherlands. I knew it: now it's our turn. You can play down your part until the cows come home, but then it's time to face the music”.

“We thought we'd taken our responsibility as the Senate with that mail to Aleph in which we clearly distanced ourselves from the theme and everything to do with it,” says Peterse. “But after that call, the stress hit us. We realized then: this isn't something we can explain away, we'll just have to take it.” After all, Pelgrim had made it very clear to the corps board at the outset: this is not an Aleph matter, it's you guys TU/e is dealing with. “If a football's lowly seventh team goes off the rails, it's still the football club that is called to account.”

Read on below the photo.

But first of all the Senate was forced into crisis mode, tells Quaedvlieg. “It was all systems go. At a moment like that a huge amount of adrenalin floods through you.” In consultation with TU/e spokesperson Pelgrim a number of firm process agreements were made - from drafting a statement for the websites of both the E.S.C and Aleph to informing those directly involved. “We had to act before the Cursor article appeared, in particular notifying our members, reunion members and stakeholders.” Nearby residents of both the E.S.C association premises Ilium and the Aleph house also had to be informed, “because there might have been reporters at the door before long,” says Quaedvlieg.

Quick phone calls were also made to their own parents, he says. “I didn't explain right away exactly what was going on, but I did say that we had to take our responsibility for something that as an association we had not done.” Peterse, “My father was mainly keen to put things into perspective, ‘It involves a Carnival party, it is a joke.’ And he urged me strongly: stay calm, don't let yourself get wound up.” Present E.S.C foreman Van Geest adds, “I talked about it again later with my father and his main point was, ‘What can you learn from something like this?’ And he said, ‘When you're under attack, keep quiet and wait it out.’”

Read on below the photo.

Midway through that Tuesday evening Quaedvlieg emailed a statement about the events and sanctions to all E.S.C members, “totally watertight, totally correct” - while realizing: there's a chance this mail will do the rounds. And how. “Literally within eight minutes of its being sent, someone on the board of SSRE (another Eindhoven student social association, ed.) received it via his girlfriend in a dispuut in Maastricht,” tells Peterse. Screenshots of the mail were circulating on Twitter in no time, while on Facebook images of the announcement poster were doing the rounds.

That same night the ANP, the NOS and Nu.nl were already calling up and before breakfast the next morning the E.S.C and #nietoo were indeed national news - from the LINDA website to GeenStjil. Incidentally, the countless phone calls from journalists throughout the morning initially escaped the notice of E.S.C foreman Peterse; he was applying himself to an exam on campus, while his colleagues at Ten Hagestraat noted down names and telephone numbers. Did they want to take part in a talk show later that day, ran one request. The E.S.C refused. “We asked ourselves: do we have anything to gain? Clearly not,” says Quaedvlieg.

There were reporters who called E.S.C members on their cellphone numbers: “Hi, I am so-and-so, do you want to comment?” says Peterse. Armed with a camera, one reporter staked out the Aleph house on the Guido Gezellestraat, in vain, incidentally - curtains and doors remained closed. Besides, some of the nine residents had taken the precautionary measure of sleeping elsewhere that night, knows Van Geest; others had swapped the ground floor temporarily for the upstairs rooms.

Read on below the photos.

That Wednesday was nonetheless intense, as Quaedvlieg and Peterse recall. It wasn't only journalists who were descending on the E.S.C; various readers were only too happy to put in their two cents' worth. “Ordinary people, sometimes with anonymous email addresses, who wrote: ‘We're gonna fuck you up the ass’.” But there was support too, says Quaedvlieg, in the form of reactions to news reports, in which readers wrote: ‘Surely you understand that this is a joke?’

On that evening's TV news, broadcast nationally by NOS at 8 p.m., #nietoo was given only a brief mention, “actually after 2 p.m. that afternoon the biggest hype was already over. Because, I think, we simply had a watertight story,” says Quaedvlieg. “The association was under fire, but there was also a lot of decisiveness and internal support.” Peterse continues, “We tried to weather the storm as best we could and then let it blow over. On Thursday evening we had a meeting with the Senate and we actually said at that point, ‘We've made a good job of this - now we have to look at what we are going to do in the coming period’.”

In any event, heading the to-do list was a visit to chief diversity officer Eva Demerouti of TU/e - and, in preparation for this, talks with both Aleph and the reunion members of this oldest Eindhoven dispuut, because the conclusion, according to Peterse, was clearly this: aside from the discussion whether or not #nietoo was a joke, “this is not what makes people here feel at home and it is at odds with the culture we have here.”

Quaedvlieg takes up this point, “Aleph too clearly had the feeling that they had something to make amends for.” Accordingly, he says, the dispuut did various good deeds after #nietoo, some for charities such as the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF). The dispuut was also invited to a debating contest between high school pupils at the Van Abbe Museum, an event that opened with ‘the #nietoo case’. With Aleph president Koningen as chair, pupils proceeded to debate such matters as how far you can take humor and satire, and when does something stop being funny.

Read on below the photo.

According to the former E.S.C board member, Eindhoven has “a pretty healthy student culture,” even when it comes to, say, hazing rituals, which have frequently caused a rumpus in cities like Leiden and Groningen. This is due in part to the levelheaded Brabant attitude, he thinks. And to, “The strong sense of a clique; the associations here are fairly small. Of course, like anywhere else, people here do crazy things at times, certainly when they've had a bit to drink. But they know each other and keep each other in check.”

Peterse says he understands that this might not be all that evident to the outside world, due to the closed nature of the association. “This is a conscious choice: those closed doors give people the space to make mistakes that they won't be called to account for right away. We want to offer an environment in which people can grow safely, by trial and error.” Van Geest adds, “That means you can do something dumb without being publicly shamed on the spot. There's an idea behind this: if you can keep your head above water here, you can do the same anywhere else later on in life”.

Read on below the photo.

That #nietoo has tarnished their reputation in some quarters, among them the E.S.C.'s Wikipedia page, is something these guys are resigned to.“A friend at Vindicat (the student corps in Groningen, ed.) joked, ‘Finally, you've joined our ranks’,” says Peterse. Not that they are trying retrospectively to laugh off the whole affair, the three hasten to add - it wasn't an enjoyable period by any means. But it was instructive. Crisis management, difficult discussions with the Executive Board, speaking to the press: formative experiences each and every one, says Quaedvlieg. “As the Senate, we were caught up in a storm not of our own making. And at some later date I'll talk proudly about that time.”

Job van Geest was not caught in the eye of the storm; he took over the presidential baton from Peterse only later this year. An ambition he cherished before #nietoo and that, he says, never wavered for a moment. “I thought, if you lose the desire to take on this responsibility now of all times, it means you simply aren't suited to the role. I support this association and what we do, and I want to project that.”

According to the threesome, the issue is seldom mentioned these days, except for the occasional joke in the E.S.C's own bar. “For a fleeting moment you are world news, then a day or two later it has all blown over,” says Van Geest. In any event, the #nietoo chapter, with the exception of this moment of reflection with Cursor, is closed for Aleph and the E.S.C, says Peterse.

Read on below the photo.