Ruling that David Miller was wrongfully dismissed by University of Bristol for antizionist beliefs upheld

The Union of Jewish Students (UJS) have asserted that “A narrow legal finding on expressions of a philosophical belief in the workplace is not a moral endorsement of conduct or those beliefs”.

The Community Security Trust (CST) have warned the decision “is utterly surreal and completely detached” from reality.

The judgement has been heralded by Miller – who intends to return to his post as a Sociology Professor – as a victory belonging to the “final dismantling of Zionism”.

In February 2024, an employment tribunal ruled that Miller, who is also a regular commentator on Iranian state channel Press TV, had been discriminated against and unfairly dismissed by the University of Bristol in 2021 because of his antizionist beliefs.

The university appealed the decision, but on Tuesday the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) rejected that appeal, upholding the original finding that Miller’s dismissal amounted to discrimination because it was a disproportionate response to his behaviour.

While the EAT ruled “it would have been proportionate to issue some disciplinary sanction against [Miller] short of dismissal,” it agreed with the tribunal ruling that sacking him was unfair.

The EAT result has sparked alarm in parts of the Jewish community.

A spokesman for UJS warned: “We must not allow activists to weaponise this judgment; to use it to validate antisemitic, hateful abuse and harassment.”

A CST spokesperson said the decision is “completely detached from how [Miller’s] wildly inflammatory outbursts are viewed by many Jewish people.”

The EAT upheld the original finding that Miller's dismissal amounted to discrimination because it was a disproportionate response to his behaviour.

“It was disproportionate because the employer did not give the claimant the chance to respond to a warning in relation to conduct that did not - on the Tribunal's analysis - justify immediate dismissal,” the appeal ruling states.

“A less intrusive means than dismissal could have been used by the appellant,” the EAT goes on.

Bristol University could have given Miller “a warning and could have set out more clearly and consistently what it regarded as acceptable in relation to a member of academic staff making public comments about students and student societies,” it states.

The EAT also rejected a ground of appeal advanced by Bristol's lawyers that "political beliefs are outwith the scope" of the Equality Act, as per the original ruling.

It concluded that the university had failed to overturn the tribunal's finding that moving "straight to dismissal" was "disproportionate", ruling that this conclusion was "within the legitimate parameters of judgement".

Considering the separate finding of unfair dismissal, the appeal tribunal found that the university's argument was “not well founded”.

However, the EAT endorsed the tribunal’s finding on the power imbalance between staff and students.

“The claimant was not in a position of equivalence with the students and that there was a significant power differential. It considered that it was not appropriate for professors publicly to aim aggressive discourse at students or student groups,” the EAT stated.

It also recognised that Miller’s references to students and student bodies “were not manifestations of any protected belief on which the claimant relied” and upheld the tribunal's ruling that there "was a realistic chance" that Miller would have been lawfully dismissed had he remained at the university, assessing that chance at 30 per cent.

The appeal tribunal found that Miller's comments "directed specifically at Jewish students and Jewish student groups" were an issue that "ultimately contributed materially to the decision to dismiss, but which was separate from the expression manifestation by the claimant of his protected beliefs".

The UJS said: “Universities must remain spaces of free speech and rigorous debate. No, academic freedom cannot serve as a shield against institutional responsibility, nor can it be invoked to silence Jewish students; to suppress them with hostility and intimidation.

“There is a clear distinction between criticism of the actions of a state and hateful rhetoric that casts Jewish students and their communities as the enemy.

"Jewish students experience extreme hate and racism as real-world threats to their safety, as harassment, and as exclusion – compounded by the sense that speaking up on campus leads nowhere.

“Universities must ensure they protect all students in an era where protests, social media and external actors amplify harm.

"Jewish students are not asking for special treatment – they are asking for education without fear, identity without penalty, and institutions to act when they are unlawfully targeted.

"The collective moral responsibility on campuses and beyond to protect all students against discrimination and abuse has never been greater.”

In repsonse to the EAT, Miller said: “For years, the University of Bristol capitulated to an intimidation campaign by genocidal Zionist groups to criminalise my sociological research.

“The court has made it clear: universities ‘ought to be prepared to face and to weather criticism and reputational damage which flows from the exercise by its academics of their rights to speak and think freely and lawfully’.

“The court has also declared that it is clear, coherent and legitimate to describe Zionism as racist, colonial and imperialist. Zionist claims to the contrary have been comprehensively rebuffed.

“The binding legal precedent we have established in my case means no vice-chancellor can ever again lawfully sack an academic or suspend a student simply for identifying the structural racism, colonialism and imperialism inherent in the Zionist project. Nor can any other employer. This victory belongs to the global movement for the liberation of Palestine and the final dismantling of Zionism.

“I now look forward to returning to work at the University of Bristol and taking up my post as Professor of Political Sociology. It is important that my career is reinstated and that I am therefore free to work in higher education without fear of intimidation or reprisal.”