Susanne Täuber’s supporters have started a crowdfunding campaign to help her pay for her legal costs. The campaign raised more than 10 percent of its goal of 33,000 euros.
‘She’s currently had to pay more than 33,000 euros in legal costs, among other things on lawyers’, the initiators write. ‘We hope this fund will alleviate her financial burden.’
Täuber wants to appeal the court’s decision but worries she won’t be able to afford it. ‘It’s still a rollercoaster, but I’m so glad for all the support’, says the social safety expert who last week learned that the UG is allowed to fire her after court proceedings.
Fight
‘It also shows that people are ready for a fight, so let’s go. Hopefully there will be a positive outcome that affects everyone, including people with flexible contracts who aren’t certain of their jobs’, according to Täuber.
She also says that crowdfunding is the only way to protect individual employees from an organisation that has ‘infinite means at its disposal’.
‘We should do this more often so we can help many more people. But eventually, I’d hope the ministry will set up a fund to legally and financially help victims of this structural lack of safety at universities.’
Damaged working relationship
Last week, the court decided that the university is allowed to fire Täuber because of a ‘long-term damaged working relationship’.
The university says Täuber is difficult to work with. However, she maintains she was blackballed after she’d published an article in the Journal of Management Studies (JMS).
Women in the labour market
In the article, she showed how programmes that are intended to help women in the labour market actually end up hindering them. She focused on her own experience as a Rosalind Franklin Fellow.
While the court agreed that the university is to blame for escalating the conflict because of how it reacted to the article published in JMS, this has no bearing on the outcome.
The working relationship was damaged, the court concluded, and the university is allowed to fire Täuber.