A judge has dismissed a claim by a lecturer that Bristol University discriminated against her and discouraged her from returning to work after a stroke due to her race.
The judgement, which came after a five-day tribunal hearing at the Bristol Civil Court in Redcliffe in January, has exonerated the university and the staff who had been accused of a range of incidents from 2016 to 2020 by Dr Christabelle Peters, who said she was subjected to a 'demeaning and hostile' environment.
The tribunal had also previously heard how Dr Peters, a lecturer in Latin American Cultural History, was told ‘no one gives a s*** about Africa’ after pitching a research project based on the continent. But the judge ruled that much of her evidence was 'not convincing', and parts were 'confusing and contradictory'.
Dr Peters claimed the University of Bristol had directly discriminated against her on the grounds of being Black, with a number of individual incidents cited by the academic as examples. When she started working at the university as a lecturer, she was told to order office furniture, which took a year to arrive, and the name plate on her door did not mention her academic title, unlike her white colleagues, she claimed.
Her boss didn't tell her there were time extensions available for women with children applying for a fellowship. A year after she started work, her payslips stopped being physically sent to her. After she became ill and had a stroke, a senior leader in her department suggested that ill-health retirement was the best option for her - she said white employees would have been encouraged to return to work.
She also recalled a series of incidents that she claimed amounted to racial harassment at the University of Bristol, including a taxi she ordered to pick up a visiting lecturer not arriving, her boss insisting on accompanying her to meet students complaining about marking, another academic saying ‘nobody gives a s*** about Africa’ when she had applied for funding to research a topic related to Africa, allowing a colleague to access her computer files without her agreement, and another white colleague inviting her to a ‘writing lunch’ to try to persuade her to join her diversity-related project, so that it would look better with a Black academic on board.
She also had a separate strand of complaints against the university, that bosses there had failed to make reasonable adjustments to her work after she suffered a stroke brought on by work-related stress.
In his judgement Judge Graham King ruled that in several of the issues, Dr Peters - who represented herself during the hearing - had distorted what happened, or made claims about incidents that the tribunal’s findings of facts are that ‘no such incident took place’. With other incidents, Judge King said ‘The Tribunal does not find these arguments convincing’, and her evidence was ‘confusing and contradictory’, and that her colleagues had ‘acted in good faith’ in their dealings with her.
The judge in the tribunal said that even though it was agreed that a fellow academic Dr Peters was pitching a funding project to had dismissed it with the words ‘No one gives a s*** about Africa’, that didn’t matter, because the racial harassment Dr Peters was accusing the university of focussed on the way the issue was dealt with when she complained to her mentor, Dr Jo Crow, about what had happened.
“It is important for the tribunal to remember it is not looking at whether this comment was racially motivated or made with racial intentions,” the tribunal ruling stated. “The claimant’s claim is that Dr Crow’s handling of the situation amounted to unwanted conduct; was motivated by the claimant’s race, and had the purpose or effect of creating a hostile or degrading environment for the claimant.
“Dr Crow has been honest in her view that, on reflection, she should have handled the situation differently. The tribunal is satisfied, however, that Dr Crow’s motivation had been to see the issue resolved, and that she thought by both colleagues knowing the feelings of the other, this might be achieved,” he added, concluding that what happened in the way it was all handled was ‘not motivated by the claimant’s race’.
Judge King found that Dr Peters’ claims of direct race discrimination, harassment related to race, victimisation and the university’s failure to make reasonable adjustments following her ill-health, were all ‘not well founded’ and were dismissed.
A spokesperson for the University of Bristol said: “We are pleased the judge dismissed all claims made against us, finding no evidence of discrimination.
“This has been an incredibly challenging period for everyone involved, particularly the witnesses who have been offered our full and ongoing support.
“We are disappointed matters needed to be resolved through legal channels as we know staff tried their very best efforts to support Dr Peters and address her various concerns. She has since left the University and we wish her all the very best for the future.
“We are committed to making sure that our University is inclusive for all staff and students, and that everyone feels they belong. We want the experience of studying and working here to be positive and welcoming for everyone. All concerns raised about discrimination are taken seriously and relevant action taken in accordance with our University policies,” he added.
- The full judgement in the case can be read here.
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