Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision to dismiss the claimant and the refusal of his appeal against that dismissal were each found to be unlawful acts of direct discrimination,\u201d the tribunal said. \u201cThe dismissal was held to be unfair, and wrongful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller told Al Jazeera the ruling was a victory for all those in Britain who are opposed to Zionism, a nationalist ideology that contends that Jewish people have the right\u00a0to self-determination in historic Palestine, which Zionists view as their ancestral homeland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be very, very difficult for any employer, not just in terms of universities, but any employer in the UK, anyone who\u2019s in any kind of employment-like relationship with individuals to suspend them, to sack them, to target them because they\u2019ve got anti-Zionist views,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n
Miller, who had worked as a professor of political sociology at Bristol since 2018, challenged the university at an employment tribunal after he was sacked, claiming unfair dismissal, breach of contract and discrimination or victimisation on grounds of religion or belief.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/000_1GV2KJ.jpg\")
The Wills Memorial Building, part of the University of Bristol, pictured on May 16, 2019 [File: Geoff Caddick\/AFP]<\/p>\n
\u2018Political pawns\u2019<\/p>\n
Miller had described some Jewish student groups as \u201cpolitical lobby groups\u201d and expressed opposition to \u201cJewish students on British campuses being used as political pawns by a violent, racist foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing\u201d.<\/p>\n
In February 2024, the tribunal ruled he had been unfairly dismissed for comments which were lawful, not anti-Semitic, and did not incite violence or threaten anyone\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n
The university appealed, but the latest ruling has confirmed his firing was unlawful and discriminatory. The ruling implicitly confirms that under British law, anti-Zionism does not equate to anti-Semitism \u2013 prejudice against Jewish people.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson said the University of Bristol was \u201cdisappointed\u201d with the findings, adding that it remains committed to protecting free speech \u201cexercised appropriately and in line with our codes of conduct\u201d.<\/p>\n
Miller told Al Jazeera there had been a \u201cpressure campaign from external Zionist organisations and Zionist student organisations\u201d to get him dismissed. \u201cThey came to believe that the things that I was saying, fairly straightforward anti-Zionist positions, were somehow beyond the pale,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Miller said his dismissal had discouraged other academics from speaking out. He said they \u201cwere already self-censoring and when they saw what happened to me, that encouraged the self-censorship\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that this victory will mean there are some academics who feel that they can speak out,\u201d he said. \u201cThey can speak the truth about the genocide in the Levant, and this will encourage people to start to be much more critical of Zionism as an ideology and not just say that there are some forms of Zionism which are problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Miller has told Al Jazeera the ruling is a victory that will encourage others to speak out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1398,591,59,57,58,937,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-728649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-education","tag-europe","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-human-rights","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}