How are educational institutions navigating this explosive landscape? Below is a summary of the major controversies.

Controversy 1: Decolonisation and inclusive teaching materials

In an opinion piece in Erasmus Magazine, the publication of the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), the educationist Brian Godor referred to the decolonisation of the curriculum as ‘indoctrination’. Godor says that the goal of education and research is to learn about the world as it is, with the decolonisation of the curriculum ostensibly leading to changing the goal to ‘creating a new world’. He believes that this leads to objectivity being lost.  

Nevertheless, almost all universities, except for the universities of Twente and Wageningen, ánd the universities of applied sciences in Rotterdam and Amsterdam are devoting attention to more inclusive teaching materials and decolonising the curriculum. Several diversity officers confirm that Black Lives Matter have raised awareness on the issue of institutional racism and how the colonial past impacts our current way of thinking. This awareness has also penetrated educational institutions. Curricula are often based on European or Western perspectives and decolonisation is an attempt by programme departments at changing that state of affairs and making room for non-Western ideas and perspectives. Decolonizing the curriculum is something that political party Bij1, among others, also considers necessary.

At the TU/e, president of the Executive Board Robert-Jan Smits was asked at the end of April in the radio broadcast 'Dr Kelder en Co en de Jortcast' by Jort Kelder during the live broadcast from the campus in Eindhoven how his university viewed the decolonization of education. Kelder referred, among other things, to changed insights when it comes to the question of where mathematics originates. Smits gave Kelder a clear answer (this broadcast is in Dutch): "Keep that nonsense above the rivers." (referring to a common division made in the Netherlands between the southern part under the rivers of Maas and Waal and the western and nothern part, including the four biggest cities, ed.)

Controversy 2: Diversity is more than helping white women get a job

For many years, women were the key demographic of diversity policies at educational institutions, however, a shift is currently underway. ‘Helping white women get a job’ is how Hahae Son, a student council member at the UvA, expressed her dissatisfaction with the 2020 diversity memorandum in the independent university publication Folia.

It is now common practice not only to look at whether someone is a woman or not, but also to take into account other axes of difference, such as skin colour or socio-economic class and how they impact one another. For example, a white woman with highly educated parents will encounter different obstacles than a woman of colour from a working-class family. In academic and activist circles, this is known as intersectional thinking. This study shows that intersectionality forms the basis of diversity policies at all the educational institutions that were studied.

Machiel Keestra, the Chief Diversity Officer at the UvA says that ‘broadening out helps make it clear that I’m not interested in pushing through a particular agenda in an activist way.’ One of the concrete effects of this broader perspective is that diversity policies are increasingly focused more on a more diverse workforce. Universities of applied sciences in the Randstad metropolitan region, for example, are struggling with the fact that their teaching staff does not reflect their student population, which goes beyond just male-female ratios.

Diversity officer Aliya Çelik says that this is in line with what many students at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences want. This is an issue other universities of applied sciences within the Randstad metropolitan region are struggling with – even more so, it seems, than the universities in the same cities. Students at the universities of applied sciences are more culturally diverse than at the universities, say diversity staff at the universities of applied sciences of Rotterdam and Utrecht. 

But how do you go about creating a more diverse workforce? People in management positions tend to be white and more likely to hire people who look like them, say diversity staff, and have implicit biases about people who are different.

All the educational institutions that were studied are now tackling these unconscious biases with so-called unconscious bias training sessions to make people more aware of this. These trainings are often not mandatory. In addition, manuals are now widely available on how to write inclusive job ads. Diversity staff are also arguing in favour of making it mandatory for job ads to expressly state that the organisation aims to foster a diverse workforce. At TU/e, the Irene Curie program is, of course, an example of how the university wanted to ensure that more women were hired and thus get more diversity among staff. However, the Institute for Human Rights was clear about this: the Irene Curie program was too strict. In April 2021 the program was restarted again in an adapted manner.

The fact that trying to make the staff more diverse is not been widely celebrated is something set out by Jules van Binsbergen in an op-ed piece in newspaper NRC that was published last September. Van Binsbergen is a Professor of Financial Economics at the University of Pennsylvania and believes that diversity statements of this type are a way of testing whether applicants are on the ‘right’ side of the political debate. He has warned that this will similarly put pressure on academic freedom in the Netherlands, as he believes is already the case in the United States.

Controversy 3: Going beyond he and she

Almost all administrative systems at educational institutions are set up for the dichotomy of men and women. This no longer fits with current thinking on sex and gender. The visibility and emancipation of the transgender community is gaining momentum. In addition, there are more and more people who identify as non-binary.

There is also resistance to the change in the way we think about and approach gender identity. In a piece in the AD newspaper, for example, Pieter de Vries, a theology lecturer at the VU University Amsterdam, compared ‘gender ideology’ to Nazi ideology, making his assertions in the wake of an intense debate surrounding his support of the Nashville Statement, a Christian document that rejects homosexuality and gender transitioning, amongst other things.

Marco Strijks, Diversity & Inclusion Liaison Officer at the Saxion University of Applied Sciences, emphasises that the demand for change does not come from the diversity office, but rather is coming from students themselves. ‘I get a lot of complaints about how gender and salutations are set up in IT systems. They don’t accommodate for non-binary people or use the wrong pronouns. You run into all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles trying to change that, and my job is to assist in that regard.’

Strijks is not the only one receiving queries about changing gender registration. The modification of registration systems is an active issue at almost all educational institutions. Recent efforts at the EUR in this regard were successful, and students can now change their pronouns in the Canvas education software.

Exactly how many of these toilets should be installed is another question. Marco Strijks of Saxion University of Applied Sciences explains that it took him five years to get an all-gender toilet installed in every building. He cites an example of a member of staff who balked at the toilets near his office being renovated. ‘He thought he’d have to go further afield’, says Strijks.
Once the toilets at Saxion had all been installed, people who thought they were unnecessary would scratch the stickers off the doors. There were also people who felt uncomfortable with a toilet that was accessible to all for religious reasons, alongside women who were not happy that others could enter ‘their space’. At Saxion, it was mainly the women's toilets that were changed into all-gender toilets, which is something that Strijks would have done differently in retrospect. Ultimately, Saxion also adapted the men’s toilets.  

Despite all the commotion, little has changed for people who do not want to make use of gender-neutral toilets, as all the universities and universities of applied sciences also still have separate toilets for men and women.

Methodology used in the study

This study involved an analysis of 36 policy documents from 21 educational institutions: 13 universities and 8 universities of applied sciences*. This relates to visions, strategies, memoranda, action plans and position papers in which educational institutions set out their plans.

As part of this study, we spoke to diversity officers from thirteen universities and seven universities of applied sciences about their work. Nearly all diversity officers cited having to deal with negative responses, three of which said they had received threats. As a result, a number of these individuals were reluctant to participate in this study.