VUB and ULB, two monolingual universities in Brussels

 

 

Introduction

 

Belgium is often ridiculed for its complexity, often rightly so.[1] As law student at our university, we do not only have to learn a complex constitutional system dividing competences between different levels, but we also see this complexity reflected in the places we study and live in. I study at the VUB – the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. This translates to the ‘Free University of Brussels’ and is not to be confused with the ULB – the Université Libre de Bruxelles, translated as the… ‘Free University of Brussels’. I speak Dutch when I’m at university, but as soon as I walk outside, people in the capital of not only Belgium but also of the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders[2] speak mostly French. This blogpost will explain the history of how Brussels has two universities with the same name and what legal instruments and events caused this oddity.

 

Belgique, indépendante, bilingue et francophone

 

The year is 1831. Belgium had just declared its independence from The Netherlands. People in Flanders largely spoke Dutch, people in Wallonia spoke French, people in Brussels a bit of both. The Constitution proclaims ‘L'emploi des langues usitées en Belgique est facultatif’[3] While this might seem like a balanced approach, practice differed. The entire elite at the time; politicians, judges, lawyers and government officials, were French-speaking.[4] Some, especially in Flanders, were also Dutch-speaking, but this was frowned upon in the upper class.

 

The Université Libre de Belgique/Bruxelles

 

This was reflected in higher education as well. The Université Libre de Belgique (later renamed to Université Libre de Bruxelles) was founded in 1834 by Pierre-Théodore Verhaegen and other upper-class Brussels liberals as a response to the founding of a Catholic university in Mechelen, which later moved to Leuven to become the Université Catholique de Louvain. Universities at the time were small, only attended by children of wealthy individuals, and as a result French-speaking.

 

The introduction of Dutch at the ULB

 

The ULB, even during the early years, had some students from Flanders. While they spoke French as the cultural language of the elite at the time, some were also Dutch-speaking. This lead to the first calls for Dutch at the ULB. In 1856, Flemish students organised and founded the ‘Nederduitsch Taalminnend Genootschap[5], focussing mostly on the appreciation and study of the Dutch language. Their pleas for the introduction of a course on Dutch literature only came to fruition in 1880, 24 years later, with the ULB introducing its first Dutch course.[6] A second small step came in the form of the introduction of courses on criminal law in 1891, following the Law of 10 April 1890 requiring Dutch for criminal proceedings in Flanders.[7] The first fully Dutch programme would have to wait for another 44 years.

 

The territoriality principle leading to the first Dutch programme

 

The Flemish movement, gaining ground after World War I and pushing for Dutch as a language on par with French, managed to pass the Language Laws of 28 June 1932 and 15 June 1935 on the use of languages in administrative and judicial affairs.[8] These introduced the territoriality principle, restricting legal and administrative professions to students who took their exams in the language of the territory where they would work. This required a Dutch education for those who wanted to work in Flanders, something the ULB did not offer at the time.[9]

 

Flemish students thus were no longer able to pursue their education at the ULB if they wished to work as a lawyer, judge or civil servant in their own region. This was not only a problem for these students, but also has an impact on the ideological divide in Belgium. The ULB was the only secularist university, so if it did not provide law degrees in Dutch, only students from the Catholic and state universities would be eligible to be appointed to positions in Flanders. This lead to complaints by socialist and liberal ministers, who would have to appoint catholic judges due to a lack of secularists educated in Dutch.[10]

 

Source: ULB/Gilissen archives, no. 25, ‘Commission d’enquête – Chargée de l’examen de l’extension de l’enseignement en langue néerlandaise à l’ULB – Rapport, 7.

 

The ULB had to act and did so in 1935 by creating a Dutch Doctorate of Laws programme, although preparatory programmes leading up to the doctorate[11] would have to wait until after World War II.[12]

 

Post-war democratisation: more Dutch students

 

In addition to the territoriality principle, the post-war democratisation also lead to an increased need for Dutch higher education. Although the wave of increased participation in higher education was felt throughout Belgium and Europe, the effects was even more noticeable in the Dutch-speaking population, as the chart below shows.

Source: cited in Tyssens (n6), numbers for 1970 and 1982 only including Belgian nationals.

 

This can be explained due to a low participation of Dutch-speakers prior to the democratisation wave. As the elites going to university before World War II largely spoke French, while the middle- and lower-class Dutch-speakers were unable to do so, universities were largely French bastions. In a sixties report, this low amount of participation in higher education lead researchers to mark Flemish people as having the characteristics of a group victim of social discrimination.[13] This lack of Dutch higher education had to be remedied, requiring both the ULB and the government to act.

 

The (Law on the) expansion of the universities during the early sixties

 

The enormous growth of the universities during the sixties necessitated a response on different fronts. New universities, new branches of existing universities throughout the entire country and new campuses and building, everything was on the table, with a government ready to back. This happened when the Law of 9 April 1965 on the expansion of the universities was passed. This law increased funding for the universities, but tied these new funds to the condition of offering programmes in Dutch.[14] This conditional funding, together with a more willing ULB-administration willing to meet Flemish demands to react to societal changes and keep a secularist presence in Flanders eventually lead to a wave of new Dutch programs.[15]

 

The roughening of debate and May 1968

 

With more and more programmes available in Dutch, language equality could easily be assumed, but this would be far from the truth. Many French-speaking professors and staff still saw the ULB as a French-speaking university, with the Dutch programmes seen as merely a facility provided to students. This was reflected in the university governance, where a French-speaking rector and board were still running the university. While the rectors Janne[16] and De Keyser were sympathetic to Flemish demands, this was not the case for rector Leroy, elected in 1962. He refused to accept Dutch as a scientific language and rules out its use in the ULB administration, leading to increasing frustrations from Dutch-speaking groups, becoming more numerous as the Dutch programmes grew in number and size.[17]

 

The new rector Homès, appointed in 1965 and confronted with the Law of 9 April 1965, ordered a plan to be made for a université unitaire bilingue. Presented in October 1967, the plan was obsolete when launched, with prorector Leroy criticising the concept of a bilingual university, preferring instead to just push out the Flemish sections.[18]

 

Adding fuel to the fire, the student revolt that broke out in May 1968 following the events in Paris, marked another blow to the gerontocratic central university authority.[19] The université unitaire bilingue had been dead on arrival.

 

From ULB-VUB to ULB and VUB

 

The ULB Board of Directors finally made the decision to split on 1 February 1969, with a deadline before the start of the new academic year. Thus, on 7 October 1969, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel opened as an autonomous university with an academic opening session that took place on the ULB campus, in the same auditorium where the May 1968 revolts took place a year earlier.[20]

 

Source: Centrum voor Academische en Vrijzinnige Archieven

 

Post-split Legal uncertainty

 

The legal status however remained unclear. The Law of 12 August 1911 had given the ULB a legal personality, but housing two universities under one legal person would cause legal uncertainty. Thus, an amendment of the law was needed. This came in the form of the Law of 28 May 1970, more than half a year after the VUB had started. This law settled the ‘old’ ULB into a ‘new’ ULB and the VUB, and granted them both a separate legal personality. To overcome the problems caused by the late adoption, the law had retroactive effect.[21] Finances were another point of concern, with a division of the assets of the ULB needing to be determined. The VUB argued that it had to get a large part due to the support that the government provided to the ULB following the Law of 9 April 1965 specifically aimed at the development of the Dutch section. The argument was finally settled with the VUB getting 30% and part of the former army and police training grounds, where both universities would construct new campuses.[22]

 

ULB and VUB, bridging the gap?

 

Discontent built up during the sixties and disputes arising from the split soured relations between the two new universities. When deciding on the design for the new, shared campus grounds, both universities wanted their independence to be clear. The winning design thus featured two separate campuses, turning their backs to each other.[23]

 

Source: Centrum voor Academische en Vrijzinnige Archieven

 

Fifty-two years later, relations have improved significantly. In 2013, both universities joined forces in the Brussels University Alliance cooperating in joint research programmes and degrees, building metaphorical bridges between the universities and the city via the WeKonekt platform[24] and a physical one to connect both campuses.

 

VUB and ULB, two monolingual universities in Brussels

 

The struggle for Dutch higher education was long, coinciding with other societal changes happening in Belgium and throughout Europe. While for a long while, the goal of Dutch-speakers within the ULB was to be treated equal, the cooperation under the same umbrella became impossible by the time it was tabled. The contentious language situation in the sixties, followed by the May 1968 revolts lead to a hard split, still seen in the campus architecture fifty years on. Luckily, these old wounds have since healed, with cooperation between both secularist universities higher than ever, visualised by a building finally connecting both campuses.

 

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[1] Jokes write themselves when a country of 11 million inhabitants has 9 (!) health ministers trying to address a crisis. Alan Hope, ‘Here’s Why Belgium Has Nine Health Ministers’ The Brussels Times (Brussels, 5 March 2020) <https://www.brusselstimes.com/98588/heres-why-belgium-has-nine-health-ministers-regions-communities-powers-responsibilities-coronavirus> accessed 24 May 2022.

[2] And the Flemish Community, to add some more complexity.

[3] The use of languages in Belgium is optional, article 23 of the 1831 Constitution.

[4] Els Witte, Alain Meynen and Dirk Luyten, Politieke geschiedenis van België: van 1830 tot heden (Manteau 2016) 57–58.

[5] Dutch language-appreciating society, later renamed several times and still existing to this day as the ‘Brussels Studentengenootschap – geen taal, geen vrijheid’ (Brussels Student Society – no language, no freedom).

[6] Jeffrey Tyssens, ‘Over Het Ontstaan van de Vrije Universiteit Brussel Op Het Einde van de Jaren Zestig’ in Els Witte and Jeffrey Tyssens (eds), De tuin van akademos: studies naar aanleiding van de vijfentwintigste verjaardag van de Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUBPRESS 1995) 60–61.

[7] ibid 61.

[8] For more on the different language laws, see Maarten van Ginderachter, Els Witte and Harry van Velthoven, ‘Taalpolitiek En -Wetgeving - NEVB Online’ <https://nevb.be/wiki/Taalpolitiek_en_-wetgeving> accessed 15 June 2022.

[9] Tyssens (n 6) 61.

[10] Frederik Dhondt, ‘John Gilissen and the Teaching of Legal History in Brussels’ [2022] Folia Iuridica 26 <https://dx.doi.org/10.18778/0208.6069.86.01>.

[11] The title ‘Doctor of Laws’ did not require a PhD up until the early 1970s and was at the time equivalent to the degree of Master of Laws, giving access to legal professions.

[12] Tyssens (n 6) 62.

[13] ibid 40.

[14] ibid 45–49; L’expansion Universitaire ([s.n] 1968).

[15] Language programmes starting from 1955, exact sciences starting from 1960. By 1967, most of the programmes were available in Dutch. Tyssens (n 6) 66–67.

[16] Who became the minister responsible for the Law of 9 April 1965 after serving as ULB rector.

[17] Tyssens (n 6) 72–85.

[18] ibid 82–84.

[19] ibid 89–98.

[20] Frank Scheelings, ‘De eerste openingszitting van de VUB: een symbool en keerpunt in de geschiedenis’ (4 March 2020) <www.cavavub.be/nl/vub-eerste-openingszitting>.

[21] ‘Ontstaan en groei van de Vrije Universiteit Brussel’ <www.cavavub.be/nl/ontstaan-en-groei-vub>.

[22] Tyssens (n 6) 105–111.

[23] Charlotte Horemans, ‘Campus Oefenplein en de internationale architectuurwedstrijd’ <www.cavavub.be/nl/internationale-architectuurwedstrijd>.

[24] ‘weKONEKT.brussels’ <www.ulb-vub.be/en/wekonektbrussels>.