Party sets up campus ‘left-wing indoctrination’ hotline

A Dutch right-wing populist party set up by an ex-academic has renewed its attack on universities following its election victory, setting up a ‘hotline’ for reports and videos of left-wing ‘indoctrination’ by lecturers, writes John Morgan for Times Higher Education.

The anti-multiculturalism, anti-European Union Forum for Democracy was launched as a political party in 2016 by 36-year-old former Leiden University law lecturer, Thierry Baudet – a movement born from his Leiden PhD thesis, Baudet’s former supervisor told Times Higher Education.

The Forum for Democracy gained more votes than any other party in provincial elections for the upper house of the Dutch Parliament held on 20 March (although it only won 14.5% of the vote). Since the election, the party has provoked outrage among many in Dutch universities and condemnation from the education minister by setting up a ‘hotline’ for ‘reporting indoctrination at schools and universities’, inviting videos and other evidence of supposed left-wing bias in teaching.
Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site