University of Bristol v Dr David Miller: EAT upholds discriminatory dismissal finding

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has upheld an Employment Tribunal's finding that the University of Bristol unlawfully discriminated against a sociology professor by dismissing him for comments in which he expressed the belief that political Zionism is racist, imperialist and colonial, while sending one narrower issue on compensation back for reconsideration.

In University of Bristol v Dr David Miller [2026] EAT 84, the Hon. Lord Fairley, President, sitting with Mr Nick Aziz and Dr Gillian Smith MBE, dismissed the majority of the university's appeal and the claimant's cross-appeal, but allowed one ground concerning how much compensation should be reduced to reflect the chance that the claimant might in any event have been fairly dismissed at a later date.

Dr Miller, a Professor of Political Sociology, was summarily dismissed in October 2021 for gross misconduct following comments made in February 2021, including a public speech, remarks to the Jewish Chronicle, and an email to a student newspaper, in which he described Zionism in strongly critical terms and linked Bristol's Jewish Society and the Union of Jewish Students to what he characterised as a lobbying campaign against him. The Employment Tribunal found that his underlying beliefs, that political Zionism is inherently racist, imperialist and colonial and ought to be opposed, satisfied the established legal test for a protected philosophical belief, and that the dismissal, along with the rejection of his internal appeal, amounted to direct discrimination because of that belief. It also found the dismissal unfair and, separately, wrongful for want of notice. However, it dismissed a related complaint that merely finding him guilty of any misconduct was itself discriminatory, and dismissed a harassment complaint against the university's investigating officer, distinguishing between the claimant's protected comments on Zionism and separate remarks directed personally at students and student societies, which it treated as blameworthy conduct falling outside the scope of his protected belief.

On appeal, the university challenged nearly every aspect of the tribunal's reasoning, arguing among other things that the claimant's beliefs were purely political and therefore unprotected, that the tribunal had failed to properly assess proportionality, and that dismissal should not have been found discriminatory or unfair at all. The EAT rejected these arguments comprehensively. It held that political beliefs are capable of protection under the Equality Act provided they meet the established threshold criteria, that the tribunal had been entitled to conclude the claimant's belief met that threshold, and that its findings on causation, namely that the expression of the belief had materially influenced the decision to dismiss, were properly reasoned conclusions of fact not open to challenge on appeal. The EAT also upheld the tribunal's proportionality assessment, agreeing that a lesser sanction such as a warning could have addressed the university's legitimate concerns without dismissal.

The tribunal had earlier reduced the claimant's compensation for unfair dismissal by 50 per cent to reflect his own contribution through separate comments about students, a finding the EAT also upheld, along with the university's unsuccessful attempt to increase that reduction to 100 per cent. The one ground on which the university succeeded concerned the tribunal's assessment that there was a 30 per cent chance the claimant would have been fairly dismissed by October 2023 in any event, following further social media posts he made in August that year. The EAT found this conclusion inadequately explained given the equivocal evidence about those posts, and has remitted that specific issue to the same tribunal for reconsideration at the outstanding remedy hearing.

The claimant's cross-appeal, which sought to overturn the rejected misconduct and harassment complaints, was dismissed in full.