Dear members of the TU/e Executive Board,
We, the undersigned staff and students of Eindhoven University of Technology, are writing to express our profound concern, distress, and anger regarding the anti-abortion demonstration held by the TFP Student Action Europe (Civitas Christiana) on the Koeveld on March 12th, 2026. We appreciate the clear response from the Executive Board posted via the Intranet and Cursor. We feel it is now important to highlight the further systemic impact and necessary follow up actions following this event.
This letter serves as a formal record of our collective experience and a request for follow up action from the university.
Students and staff saw the protest unfolding in plain view of the Atlas building. In response, a few staff and students immediately initiated a peaceful counterprotest, obscuring the TFP group's banner from view with their coats and jackets. The banner read “Bid en strijd om een einde te maken aan de zonde van abortus – Het werkt echt!” (in English: Pray and fight to put an end to the sin of abortion – It really works!). The men of varying ages from the TFP Student Action represent an extremist religious view against abortion. They preach hateful anti-abortion, anti-woman and anti-queer rhetoric in an effort to radicalize the public and spread misinformation. What followed after their arrival on campus was not a peaceful exchange of ideas, but a targeted campaign of verbal abuse, (physical) intimidation, and privacy violations against members of our own community, on our own campus.
We have serious concerns regarding how this action took place and the ensuing events. First and foremost, the protestors were deliberately provocative and engaged continuously in verbal and physical abuse against counterprotesters. They used intimidation, mockery and baiting to incite argument and at times, violence. They committed a series of highly personal attacks targeting individual counterprotesters (us), accusing them of being sinners, whores, and murderers, and asking what it felt like to be “baby killers”. They also used physical violence against counterprotesters, repeatedly pushing them from behind and ripping their upheld clothing forcefully from their hands. One student was thrown to the ground by a TFP member whose identity is known to us, almost ending up in the pond by the Atlas building. Her breasts were groped in the process. Many of these acts of violence can be clearly seen on video footage.
Whilst campus security initially intervened by asking the TFP group to stop physically engaging with peaceful counterprotesters, they could not adequately respond to later reports of physical and sexual assault as the TFP group were not students from the TU/e.
Furthermore, TFP Student Action Europe recorded the counterprotesters in a close-up manner the entire time. Under AVG/GDPR regulations, it is permitted to take footage in public space. However, a closer look at their social media reveals how they intentionally antagonize and (physically) provoke counterprotesters with the goal of using the footage to commit further abusive harassment against them online. This is clearly pre-meditated, considering the group came prepared with body cameras, professional filming equipment and earpieces for tactical manoeuvring. This is a violation of privacy as the group did not in any way collect written consent to take footage. Multiple members of the TU/e community are now featured without consent in TFP Student Action Europe's online hate videos. We are concerned for the safety of counterprotesters, as it is well documented how this type of radicalized anti-women hate content incites violence and can have serious repercussions both on- and off-line.
Finally, we are concerned about the misinformation about reproductive health and abortion spread by the demonstrators through speeches and illegally distributed flyers. Not only does this misinformation pose life-threatening health consequences, it is also in clear violation of the TU/e's commitment to scientific integrity.
We understand that TFP Student Action Europe were permitted to be on campus under the guise of free speech, and we recognize protest as an important mechanism for social change that must be protected. While they were officially allowed to be here and therefore could not be removed, nor perhaps prevented in future, it is within our power as a community to choose how we respond. In the recently published and widely publicized University “Gender Equality Plan” (that Horizon Europe research funding is contingent upon) the university publicly affirmed that women and nonbinary people are valued and respected members of the TU/e community. The university also publicly recognized the need for ongoing maintenance and creation of an inclusive and safe working environment through meaningful action in the areas of culture, policy, and organizational structure (Section 3.2). In the Gender Equality Plan, these efforts are recognized as mechanisms to counter the “revolving door effect”. We would like to make it clear that being made to feel targeted, threatened, unsafe, and (re)traumatized in our place of work and study does not align with these plans and publicly made commitments. It is experiences like these that contribute to the “leaky pipeline” of women in academia.
To meaningfully achieve gender equality (or even better, equity) at the TU/e, it is essential to recognise how seemingly “external” politics infiltrate our community’s lived experiences, and as such, pose very real risks to social safety. “External” politics were literally on our doorstep yesterday, attacking the gendered bodily autonomy and personhood of a significant portion of the people present on campus each day.
We urge the university to commit to an open and transparent way of building and maintaining a safe environment for everyone regardless of their gender, race, religion, and sexuality. Below, we outlined actionable demands that we, as researchers engaged in feminist methodologies, believe will help making TU/e a safer, inclusive work environment. We therefore demand:
A formal, public response from the university: We request a formal written response from the Executive Board addressing the concerns raised in this letter. This response should publicly affirm the university's commitment to the safety and dignity of all its members, particularly women and gender minorities.
Prior notification of external demonstrations: We demand a clear, actionable plan to inform students and staff at least 24 hours in advance of any planned external demonstration on campus. This would allow community members, especially those for whom such topics are deeply personal and potentially traumatic, the agency to prepare or choose to work remotely.
Mandatory training for security staff: We demand immediate, specialised training for all TU/e security personnel on de-escalation, identifying hate speech and harassment, and effectively protecting community members during protests involving external groups, rather than acting as passive observers.
Clarity on staff rights and responsibilities: We request clear guidelines for staff regarding their rights to participate in lawful counterprotests on campus without fear of professional repercussions. The current ambiguity created a chilling effect that left many feeling powerless to act in solidarity.
Development of contemporary solidarity training: We urge the university to develop and implement ongoing training for staff and students on navigating political polarisation, upholding community values, and practicing effective solidarity. This training should go beyond policy to provide the tools, language, and reflexivity needed to support one another in times of crisis. The experience on Thursday shows that existing training provided by the university is insufficient.
A Working Group on Gender Equality in Practice: We propose the formation of a joint staff-student working group tasked with auditing how the university's Gender Equality Plan is actualized in daily campus life, with a specific mandate to address real-world threats to social safety, such as the one we experienced. We ask that participation inthis working group is voluntary, non-hierarchical and not exclusively delegated to institutionalized groups such as WISE or Social Safety officers.
We hope to hear from you and enter into further discussion soon.