The University of Bristol campus. Photo: Adrian Pingstone/Wikimedia Commons.

Jewish civil rights groups in the UK on Monday expressed disappointment in a government agency’s ruling that University of Bristol lacked standing to fire sociologist David Miller, an extreme anti-Zionist who was accused of harassing Jewish students and promoting antisemitic tropes.

The decision was rendered by a Bristol-based Employment Tribunal, one of a consortium of agencies which the UK government describes as independent arbitrators of disputes over employment law.

The agency ruled that Miller’s “anti-Zionist beliefs qualified as a philosophical belief and as a protected characteristic” and that “the relationship between [Miller] and the university was not so damaged that trust and confidence was undermined to the extent that the employer should no longer be required to retain [Miller] in employment.” It added, however, that Miller’s “own actions” prompted his firing, citing unbecoming social media activity.

University of Bristol fired Miller in Oct. 2022 after a deluge of incidents and numerous complaints about his conduct in the classroom and on social media. In the months leading up to his dismissal, Miller called for the “end of Zionism” during a lecture and spread conspiracies about British Jewish students, calling them an arm of Israeli intelligence. The conduct had carried on for years, however. In 2018, he castigated Jewish students for expressing discomfort with his employment at the university, denigrating their fears about his statements and rising antisemitism across the UK as “propaganda which they have been schooled with.”

The professor’s remarks have outraged British Jews and non-Jews, drawing condemnations from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and from the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, a collection of MPs who committed to eradicating antisemitism from public life. In a letter to University of Bristol Vice Chancellor Brady, the MPs charged that Miller had “incited hatred” against Jewish students on campus harmed the university’s reputation.

“UJS is disappointed by the Employment Tribunal’s judgement in relation to David Miller,” the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) said in a statement responding to the ruling. “UJS believes this may set a dangerous precedent about what can be lawfully said on campus about Jewish students and the societies at the centre of their social life.”

“We are extremely concerned about what the Employment Tribunal considers is acceptable for a university professor to say publicly about Jewish students and Jewish societies who raised legitimate complaints about him,” Community Security Trust, a nonprofit that monitors antisemitism, added. “Despite finding in Miller’s favour, the tribunal still said that he was equally to blame for his own dismissal. Since then he has continued to express obnoxious opinions on Iranian State TV, which is exactly where he belongs.”

University of Bristol also expressed disagreement with the agency’s ruling but limited its public comments to defending its determination that Miller could not be retained as a member of the faculty.

“After a full investigation and careful deliberation, the university concluded that Dr. Miller did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff in relation to comments he made in February 2021 about students and student societies linked to the university,” an official statement issued on Monday said. “As a result and considering our responsibilities to our students and the wider university community, his employment terminated.”

Miller has since touted the ruling as a “landmark judgement” and “victory.”

“I’m proud to say that, with this case, we have proven that anti-Zionist beliefs, of the sort that I articulated, should be protected,” Miller said on X/Twitter. “I hope this case will become a touchstone precedent in all the future battles that we face with the racist and genocidal ideology of Zionism and the movement to which it is attached.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.