In May, Leiden University published a devastating investigation revealing that Hofman and Hoogland had engaged in serious socially transgressive behaviour such as intimidation, discrimination, manipulation, bullying, mocking and ridicule for decades. The archaeologists abused their position of power, openly questioned the quality of employees and disparaged their work.
 
In addition, the internal investigation committee found it ‘plausible’ that the duo breached academic integrity by manipulating data and wrongfully ‘appropriating research material from third parties’. Following this report, the Executive Board initiated a dismissal procedure against Hofman, with the case set to be heard by the subdistrict court on 10 October.
 
However, two members of Maastricht University’s Committee on Scientific Integrity, Bruno de Witte and Sjaak Koenis, now conclude that there is insufficient evidence of violations of academic integrity and therefore, these allegations should not factor into the decision to dismiss Hofman. The request for their counter-expertise came from Hofman and Hoogland, but for their investigation, De Witte and Koenis were approached by Leiden professor and university confidential counsellor for academic integrity Jan van Ruitenbeek. They ‘do not know any of the involved parties’, they write in their report, ‘and have not had any further contact with them’.
 
According to De Witte and Koenis, there are ‘no grounds to speak of a violation of academic integrity, not even of questionable behaviour, and at most of an occasional minor shortcoming’, and there is ‘insufficient evidence to (partly) justify the request for termination of Hofman’s employment’.

SCREWDRIVER OR LEATHERMAN?

They say this also applies to the most striking incident in the investigation report: according to three witnesses, during a 2009 fieldwork expedition at a depot in St. Lucia, ‘dental remains were removed from skeletons in a violent manner and without a permit’. These were allegedly extracted from a skull using tongs, without the necessary permits and ‘disregarding generally accepted ethical and technical rules in the field of archaeology’.

However, Hofman and Hoogland now state in writing that the ‘rules regarding the extraction of teeth did not yet exist at that time’ and that the removal of the dental remains was ‘carried out in a professional manner using a Leatherman multitool rather than a hammer and screwdriver’ as stated in the investigation report. The lack of a permit was ‘a formality’: shortly after the incident, a permit was obtained. They did lack an export permit for transporting the remains to Leiden, which meant that ‘the material was completely unusable for the first few years after the incident’, according to the duo.

Based on that defence, De Witte and Koenis conclude that ‘it was not sufficiently substantiated’ that the couple violated ‘standards of good research practice concerning the extraction of human remains’.

Furthermore, De Witte and Koenis ‘found no evidence of improper conduct regarding data access’ and argue that no rules of conduct were violated in this regard. The same applies to issues concerning authorship, such as complaints about enforcing co-authorship on publications, adding authors for non-content-related reasons and withholding recognition for research contributions. ‘We do not think that these cases indicate serious authorship issues’, state the two. ‘The authorship of the small group of complainants has, in general, been demonstrably respected’.
 
Two complainants reported that Hofman pressured them to refer to Hofman’s publications in their own work. Hofman and Hoogland argue that ‘referring to one’s own publications is a grey area when it comes to joint research or when supervising students or PhD candidates’.
 
De Witte and Koenis deem this defence ‘convincing’, all the more so because the investigation committee ‘did not take the trouble to investigate whether these references were justifiable or objectionable in the cases cited’. Their conclusion: the Code of Conduct was not violated in this respect either.

VALUE

There are two reasons to question the value of the counter-expertise. Firstly, it is based solely on three written sources: the investigation committee’s advisory report, Leiden University's request for termination of Hofman's employment, and the request for counter-expertise prepared by Menno Hoogland and Corinne Hofman.
 
Secondly, the counter-expertise only addresses the alleged violation of academic integrity, while the complaints of the 19 notifiers largely concerned Hofman and Hoogland’s social misconduct, as can be read in the investigation report.
 
Nevertheless, Petra Charbon, Hofman and Hoogland’s lawyer, considers the counter-expertise to be helpful for her defence on 10 October. She writes this in a letter to Leiden University legal experts dated 28 August, a copy of which was sent to the University Council.

According to her, there are ‘no reasonable grounds’ to dismiss Hofman, the investigation committee’s findings on academic integrity issues have been ‘completely invalidated’ and she describes the investigation committee as ‘not independent’ since all members are affiliated with Leiden University.
 
The role of the dean of the Faculty of Archaeology, Jan Kolen, also ‘merits condemnation’. According to Charbon, he actively sought out notifiers, wore multiple hats, conducted his own investigation, and allegedly approached Hofman ‘with complaints in a completely unexpected and extremely intimidating manner’. She also claims that Hofman was given only one day to seek legal advice.

WORLDWIDE CANCELLATION

Furthermore, Charbon writes that the public disclosure of the investigation report ‘has led to immense damage’ to Hofman: ‘She has been cancelled worldwide, has become persona non grata, she has been banned from coming to the university by the Board; she has been made and become isolated and is now unfit for work and undergoing treatment’.
 
According to Charbon, Hofman was treated ‘completely inappropriately and with extreme carelessness’ by the Board and the Board’s actions were ‘an overstep of administrative boundaries’. In the letter, she makes an ‘urgent appeal’ to the Executive Board to stop the dismissal procedure and ‘start a discussion on a mutual solution in everyone’s interest’. Should that not happen and the Board ‘continues on this collision course’, she will request the court to overturn the dismissal procedure on 10 October and seek ‘substantial financial compensation’.
 
In preparation for that court case, Charbon filed a request under the Open Government Act (Woo request) with Leiden University on behalf of Hofman on 12 July. Among other things, she wants to access written and oral statements, written records of conversations based on audio recordings and subsequent correspondence. In another letter, sent to the court in Amsterdam on 28 August, Charbon states that she has not yet received a response from the university even though the deadline expired on 23 August.
 
‘The information is of great importance for the defence’, the lawyer writes. In the letter, she asks the court to ‘await the final results of the Woo request before proceeding with the request for termination’.