Students’ sexism row in Utrecht

Two Utrecht students have been arrested for sexism and now face charges of public insult, slander and libel.

The 20-year-olds, who belong to the Utrechtsch Studenten Corps (USC), compiled two lists that named female students, and not only gave their phone numbers and home addresses but included offensive comments about them.

After being ranked on their appearance and sexiness, 15 of the young women have now filed formal complaints with the police about they way they were identified .

The first list was published on social media in mid-March and a second list a week later, according to reports in the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) national daily.

Both Utrecht University and the HBO vocational college have stopped their grants to the USC until at least the end of the academic year, while its representatives were told that their presence would no longer be welcome at public events.

The two institutions have also ordered the USC to make a public apology for the lists, and in particular to the students whose names appeared on them.  The association has also been told to prepare guidelines that will prevent a repetition of the abusive episode.

Legislation was introduced on January 1 in the Netherlands that makes it an offence to share personal information like names, home addresses and telephone numbers online as an intimidation method that is known as “doxing.”