A professor of criminology, who was compared with “a racist uncle at the Christmas table” because of her gender critical beliefs, has won an unfair dismissal claim against the Open University.
Prof Jo Phoenix, a lesbian who set up the Gender Critical Research Network (GCRN) at the OU, was also found to have suffered victimisation and harassment, as well as direct discrimination.
She becomes the latest in a series of gender critical feminists, who believe sex is biological, immutable and should be prioritised over gender identity, to win employment tribunals.
In a judgment published on Monday, the tribunal found that Prof Louise Westmarland, head of discipline in social policy and criminology at the OU, made the “racist uncle” comment, which amounted to harassment, because she was unhappy about Phoenix signing a letter in the Sunday Times registering disquiet over a perceived inappropriately close relationship between the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall and UK universities, and about her expressing her gender critical beliefs at a Woman’s Place UK talk.
The tribunal panel, led by Judge Jennifer Young, found that Westmarland “was effectively telling the claimant off for having expressed gender critical beliefs”.
“Prof Westmarland knew that likening the claimant to a racist was upsetting for the claimant. We conclude that its purpose was to violate the claimant’s dignity because inherent in the comment is an insult of being put in the same category as racists”.
The panel found instances of direct discrimination including the prohibition of Phoenix from speaking at departmental meetings about her experiences of being treated in detrimental ways because of her gender critical beliefs or talking about her gender critical research. Additionally there was “silence and lack of praise” motivated by her gender critical beliefs when she obtained a C$1m grant while another colleague was praised just for making a grant application, according to the tribunal.
After Phoenix set up the GCRN, 368 of her colleagues signed an open letter calling for the disaffiliation of the group, which it labelled transphobic, from the OU because of the beliefs of its members. OU did not take action to ask those behind the letter, published in a Google Doc, to take it down and the tribunal said this was harassment, having “a chilling effect on the claimant expressing her gender critical beliefs and carrying out gender critical research”. A statement about the GCRN in a similar vein to the open letter was published on the university’s website by the wellbeing, education and language studies faculty/reproduction, sexualities and sexual health research group. There were also tweets and retweets from colleagues about the GCRN.
Phoenix resigned from the OU in December 2021. The tribunal found that she was constructively unfairly dismissed because the university breached the implied terms of trust and confidence in her employment contract and the duty to provide her with a suitable working environment. Remedies will be determined at a later date.
The judgment said: “We find that the claimant was not provided with effective protection from the effects of the launch of the GCRN. We find that the respondent did not provide the claimant protection particularly in the form of asking staff and students not to launch campaigns to deplatform the GCRN, or make calls to remove support for the claimant’s gender critical research, or use social media to label the claimant transphobic or TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). The respondent failed to protect the claimant because they did not want to be seen to give any kind of support to academics with gender critical beliefs, including the claimant.”
Prof Tim Blackman, vice-chancellor of the OU, said the university was disappointed by the judgment and would consider whether to appeal. He said: “We acknowledge that we can learn from this judgment and are considering the findings very carefully.
“We are deeply concerned about the wellbeing of everyone involved in the case and acknowledge the significant impact it has had on Prof Phoenix, the witnesses and many other colleagues. Our priority has been to protect freedom of speech while respecting legal rights and protections.”
• This article was amended on 23 January 2024. Woman’s Place UK was incorrectly called Women’s Place UK in an earlier version. This has been corrected.
