Van Schurman became the first woman permitted to attend lectures at Utrecht University, seated behind a curtain to avoid distracting male students.
On 5 June 1636, the newly founded University of Utrecht was inaugurated, and Anna Maria van Schurman was granted the extraordinary privilege of attending lectures — making her the first woman known to study at a university in the Netherlands, and one of the first in Europe to do so formally.
Because it was considered improper for a woman to sit visibly among male students, she was required to attend from behind a curtain or screen, or in a specially partitioned booth, so that she could hear the lectures without being seen or seen to distract the male scholars. Despite this restriction, she engaged directly with professors, particularly the theologian Gisbertus Voetius, who became a mentor and supporter of her education.
This arrangement, while still deeply constrained by the gender norms of the time, was a landmark breach in the near-total exclusion of women from higher education. Van Schurman's presence at Utrecht helped spark broader European debate about women's capacity for learning, a debate she herself contributed to prolifically through her Latin treatises defending women's right to education.
Her admission set a precedent referenced by later advocates for women's education across Europe, and Utrecht University today commemorates her as a foundational figure in its history, with buildings, lectures, and awards named in her honor.