Candidate M. Kashani, thought he had completed the entire application procedure when he received an email in which he was offered the position of full professor. He accepted the offer the same day. Three months later, he received a letter with the header: ‘termination of your employment contract’. The university made use of the probationary period to terminate the appointment, effectively overruling the hiring decision.

As final part of the hiring process, the university’s Executive Board should have approved Kashani’s appointment before an offer was made, but that had not yet happened at the time. According to the court, the first email in which Kashani got offered the job as full professor constitutes the conclusion of an employment contract. Although the university’s website states that the Executive Board must give final approval to the appointment, this wasn’t mentioned as a condition in the email. According to the law, the application process was therefore complete at that point and an employment contract existed between TU/e and Kashani.

The fact that the university withdrew the offer, according Kashani is because of his Iranian background. The court considers that suspicion to be justified. Partly because it regards such a rejection at the final stage highly unusual. ‘This kind of unexpected and remarkable decision requires a proper explanation. In the opinion of the subdistrict court, TU/e failed to provide this,’ the ruling states. ‘The subdistrict court deems that the lack of a proper explanation justifies the presumption that other reasons, such as the nationality of [the plaintiff], played a role in the decision not to appoint him.’

Prove the opposite

According to the judge, Kashani presented facts and circumstances that suggested the rejection was related to his nationality. The university had to prove that the dismissal wasn’t motivated by this in the slightest. Although the university stated in its defense that the rejection was due to doubts expressed in reports, including by the recruitment appointment advisory committee, TU/e didn’t submit any documents that made clear how the decision to withdraw the appointment was reached. In other words, the university was unable to demonstrate that discrimination didn’t play a role in the decision.

A ‘discriminatory termination’ is considered serious misconduct or negligence on the part of the employer, which is why the court decided to award Kashani the full salary of the one-year contract that had been offered to him. This amounts to just over one hundred thousand euros. The university must also reimburse his legal costs.

According to spokesperson Ivo Jongsma, the first thing the university wants to do now is to study the ruling carefully. “Only then will we decide how to proceed. We can’t say any more at this stage.”