Thread by @thebrownhijabi

This week I’ve been in an employment tribunal where a Muslim academic at @UniversityLeeds is bringing multiple claims of race and religious discrimination against the University. It has been astounding so far hearing the processes of exclusion, racial governance & undermining 🧵

Two of the claimants initial claims that were dropped due to being out of time included that the Claimant’s module “Global Jihad” was referred to the PREVENT programme because he and his Muslim colleagues were not trusted to report their students for risk of radicalisation

Interestingly the academics who curated the course had taught the “Global Jihad” module for 5 yrs to the government’s OWN Ministry of Defence… clearly influenced by self-surveillance & pressure to prove themselves against racialisation…but makes the PREVENT referral even wilder

Of the claims the tribunal *is* focused on, 1 of the most revealing is that marks given by two Muslim academics to a student for a dissertation on ‘homosexuality in the Middle East’ was passed on by the white director of @ArabicatLeeds department (& 1st marker) to be scrutinised

They’d marked it based on its orientalising views & eurocentrisim, but he (white director) had given it a high first, strangely rewarding the orientalist argument. Rather than considering the views of the 2 other markers & lowering the mark, an unprecedented 4th marker was asked

The claimant argues that this overriding of 2 Muslim academics marks was due to the white directors belief that their marks were not fair or reliable because of assumptions about their views on homosexuality because of their religion and/or race -distrusting their academic rigour

Ironically the fourth marker (a white academic) gave a mark much closer to the 2 Muslim academics… and then an adjudicator was brought in to finalise it. Bear in mind this was an undergraduate dissertation not a phd…

Today at the witness box the first marker/director has claimed that the racism complaints came out of the blue but simultaneously that he and the claimant have a history of bad relations - and claimant showed emails he’s sent about bullying and exclusion over the years

Other claims made against the university on grounds of racism include the exclusion of Claimant and his Muslim colleagues from emails they sent relating to the assessment of the student’s mark.

Other claims are that the Management Committee attempted to remove the responsibility for Final Year Projects from the Claimant; Claimant’s students in AIMES were penalised by lowering of their marks - @UniversityLeeds witnesses will speak to this later so I will update

The marking fiasco continues this afternoon. The first marker/former director is suggesting race was irrelevant, he only sought a 3rd (& then 4th) marker because of methodological issues -he believed Islamic studies scholars do not understand quantitative methodologies enough 🤔

Claimant pointed out that Islamic studies covers a vast swathe of studies incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methods; furthermore that “Islamic studies” in of itself is a racialised category in the way it is imagined…

Fascinatingly the fourth marker chosen was an expert in Terrorism Studies; for a dissertation which was about views on homosexuality in the Middle East…

However the Muslim markers teach classes on sexual ethics in Islam which is much closer to the dissertation topic surely?

Also, when the Muslim markers gave 57 & 62, the 1st marker (who gave 75) said they were “penalising” the student; yet when the fourth marker (white) ended up giving a 63, the first marker did not accuse him of penalising the student (& is the issue “penalising” or methodology?)

“I’m a Middle Eastern scholar so I’m not othering anyone here” says respondent (marker 1) to claimant’s question re whether he had Othered the markers due to them being Islamic Studies scholars… fascinating comment-surely a senior academic knows that’s not how othering works?

We now hear from first marker that because first marker has always had lots of non white colleagues and got on cordially with non white people, he implies he cannot be racist #classic

For clarification the mention of “director” does not pertain to current director of department at AIMES*

Court has ended for today but I’ll keep tweets coming on this case, it’s a long one, many more claims still for witnesses to be cross examined on

Soo… day 4 of the race discrimination tribunal began today with the Uni’s lawyer raising the issue of the case having been tweeted about; it seems @UniversityLeeds are concerned about this thread’s traction…

The marking fiasco continued yet again. The first marker would not admit to having a vested interest in his student’s dissertation receiving a 75, despite writing in the feedback that he was “proud” of her and telling marker 2 & 3 that they had penalised her

When marker 4 (white) gave a similar mark to 2 & 3 (both Muslim) marker 1 notably did not refer to this 4th mark as “penalising”

Another of uni’s witnesses today admitted that claimant & Muslim colleague *had* been excluded from email chains between himself & the first marker in which the 4th marker had already been agreed on without informing the muslim markers & in fact pitched to them as a suggestion

Uni’s 2nd witness had trouble recalling communications she was asked about but attested that as a Muslim herself she had not felt the department to be an environment of racism. She could not recall uni’s VC admitting the uni was institutionally racist at the Muslim Staff Network

I should also add that in this case the Claimant is representing himself in court against the @UniversityLeeds.

Staff at the courts said today that they’ve never seen so much public interest in an employment tribunal.

Members of the public welcome to join day 5 tomorrow

Yesterday was day 5 in court.

We heard how an entire AIMES cohort had marks lowered for “consistency across the Uni”; but this led to AIMES department having to disproportionately push students from 1sts to 2:1s -a department with a disproportionate number of students of colour

After lunch the Uni’s HR staff member explained that after Claimant came to her with a racism complaint he appeared “agitated”. She offered the white academics accused of racism counselling bc they were “visibly upset” but offered claimant only an “adjournment” of their meeting

HR staff member thought that for Claimant it was sufficiently known that mental well-being services are available and he could avail himself of these if needed.

She admits she should have offered counselling to both non white academics too now.

Another intriguing part of the day was that we heard that when HR did an investigation 3 years ago into this case, they identified Uni witness 1 & 3 had breached the Code of Practice but argued simultaneously that CoPA was too vague-despite this they haven’t amended it in 3 years

Also - when Claimant made a Freedom of Info request from HR they renamed it a Request to Investigate & declared it illegal. HR now say they dont know who exactly advised them it was illegal or to rename it

but dont contest that after FOI was made 60,000 emails were destroyed…🤔