20 votes

UK professor suffered discrimination due to anti-Zionist beliefs, tribunal rules

Topic deleted by author

3 comments

  1. [3]
    DanBC
    Link
    Link tot he judgment because FUCK the Guardian. People really struggle with this bit of the UK Equality Act. The Guardian is not a reliable source for stories involving protected characteristics....

    Link tot he judgment because FUCK the Guardian.

    People really struggle with this bit of the UK Equality Act. The Guardian is not a reliable source for stories involving protected characteristics. Weirdly, the Equality and Human Rights Commission - the independent enforcer - is even less reliable.

    The Equality Act introduces the concept of "Protected Characteristics". One of these is "Religion or Belief". The explanatory notes are useful.

    Use veganism as an example. Imagine two people. One person has studied the evidence, they've read the science, they've listened to the debates, and they've formed an opinion based on all of that reading. They go to tribunal and say this and that they've been discriminated against because they're a vegan and they have a protected belief. It's likely this person would lose (there are a few cases where people did lose in this situation) because they don't have a protected belief, they have an opinion formed on the available evidence. Now imagine a different person who goes to tribunal and who says "I don't care what the science says, I haven't read it, I just know it to be true that animals and animal products should not be exploited" - this person is likely to win tribunal (and again, there are cases where this has happened). I say this because anti-trans campaigners really like to claim they're evidence based, but they also like to claim they have a protected characteristic, and the two are incompatible.

    Does a protected belief mean the person has a belief that most, or even many, people would find to be acceptable? No, but that's the point of the protection. We don't need to protect the nice fluffy beliefs ("be kind to each other" or "Thou shalt not kill"). We need to protect the abhorrent beliefs -

    Violent Christian fundamentalist homophobia hidden behind spoiler tag"homosexuality is an abomination and gay people will burn in hell for all eternity"
    -- the court found he had a protected belief, even though what he was saying was foul. He probably could have been removed from his social work course but his university botched their paperwork by not have strong enough codes of conduct, and they botched their investigation. Again, I say this because anti-trans campaigners claim the protected belief means a respectable belief, and it doesn't. They also claim it means they can't get fired for expressing their belief, and that's incorrect because the company just needs to have policies in place and be scrupulous in following them and documenting what they're doing.

    It's difficult to talk about this because I don't want to dump a load of hate opinions into Tildes, but some other examples of vile things that ended up as protected beliefs are

    Anti-Asian hateSaying "Asians are greasy" and claiming Stoicism

    So far there appear to be just two things that are automatically not protected beliefs, and those are holocaust denial and white supremacy.

    It's useful to read the entire judgment because employment tribunal judges usually go into a lot of detail about their thinking.

    13 votes
    1. [3]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. nukeman
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        The editors of the UK Guardian are rather anti-trans. I seem to recall a row between them and the American editors on that subject.

        The editors of the UK Guardian are rather anti-trans. I seem to recall a row between them and the American editors on that subject.

        15 votes
      2. DanBC
        Link Parent
        Virulently anti trans, to the point their American colleagues wrote an open letter.

        Not sure what you have against the Guardian?

        Virulently anti trans, to the point their American colleagues wrote an open letter.

        14 votes