The Employment Appeal Tribunal has dismissed the University of Bristol’s appeal in University of Bristol v Dr David Miller [2026] EAT 84, upholding findings that the university discriminated against Dr Miller because of a protected anti-Zionist philosophical belief when it dismissed him, and that the dismissal was both unfair and wrongful. The university succeeded on a single remedy point, and the claimant’s cross-appeal failed in its entirety.
Judgment was handed down on 4 August 2026 by a panel comprising the EAT President, Lord Fairley, sitting with Mr Nick Aziz and Dr Gillian Smith MBE, following a two-day hearing in November 2025. It is the first appellate authority to confirm that a pleaded anti-Zionist belief qualifies for protection under section 10 of the Equality Act 2010, and it repays careful reading, because the outcome is considerably more textured than the reporting on either side of the case suggests.
How did University of Bristol v Miller reach the EAT?
Dr Miller was Professor of Political Sociology at Bristol from September 2018 until 1 October 2021, when he was summarily dismissed for the stated reason of gross misconduct following comments he made on three occasions in February 2021: a speech at a free speech event on 13 February, a comment given to the Jewish Chronicle on 17 February, and an on-the-record email to a student journalist the next day. An independent investigator, Aileen McColgan KC, concluded in May 2021 that there was no formal case to answer that any of those statements had exceeded the boundaries of acceptable speech, yet the university’s own investigating officer recommended disciplinary proceedings, the dean who heard them decided on summary dismissal, and an internal panel upheld that outcome in February 2022.
The Employment Tribunal’s February 2024 judgment cut both ways. It upheld the complaints of direct belief discrimination, unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal, but it reduced the basic and compensatory awards for unfair dismissal by 50% for contributory fault, found a 30% chance that Dr Miller would have been fairly dismissed by October 2023 because of further social media posts in August 2023, and dismissed his complaints of harassment and of discrimination in the misconduct finding itself. The university appealed on nine grounds. Dr Miller cross-appealed on three.
What belief did the EAT hold protected?
The belief pleaded, and agreed in the list of issues, was that political Zionism, defined by Dr Miller as an ideology that a state for Jewish people ought to be established and maintained in the territory that formerly comprised the British Mandate of Palestine, is inherently racist, imperialistic and colonial, and ought therefore to be opposed. The university argued that the tribunal should instead have examined his “true beliefs”, which it said extended to support for violence. That argument failed at the threshold: the university’s own counsel had expressly disavowed any alternative belief on the first day of the tribunal hearing, and the tribunal had accepted Dr Miller’s evidence that he was not supportive of, or open to, violence as a means of opposing Zionism. It was not open to the university to run a different case on appeal.
The EAT then rejected each of the six sub-grounds attacking the tribunal’s application of the Grainger criteria. Political beliefs can, in principle, qualify for protection. A belief need only affect a single but important aspect of a person’s life, a belief informed by academic research is not thereby reduced to mere opinion, and the pleaded belief was coherent as formulated. On the fifth criterion the EAT applied the low bar set in Forstater, noting that the university had confirmed at a case management hearing in September 2023 that it did not allege that anything Dr Miller said or did was antisemitic or a breach of the Equality Act. Neither tribunal made any finding that his comments were antisemitic. That concession framed the whole case.
Why did the discrimination findings stand?
On causation, the EAT read the tribunal’s findings as identifying two material factors that operated cumulatively as the reason for dismissal: the expression of the anti-Zionist beliefs themselves, and the separate comments Dr Miller made about students and student groups. The tribunal was entitled to conclude, in particular from concessions the dismissing dean made in cross-examination, that the expression of the beliefs had a material impact on her decision, because she accepted that if Dr Miller had linked student groups to a cause in a pro-Zionist context she would not have treated it as gross misconduct.
Applying Higgs v Farmor’s School, the tribunal had also been entitled to find dismissal disproportionate. Even on the university’s own analysis what was said was lawful, was not antisemitic, did not incite violence and posed no threat to anyone’s safety, so a sanction short of dismissal would have been proportionate. The tribunal added that it would have found the dismissal unfair under section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 in any event, because the conduct did not amount to gross misconduct and inadequate attention was given to a lesser sanction. All of those conclusions survive.
What did each side lose?
The outcome was not one-sided. The EAT upheld the tribunal’s rejection of Dr Miller’s complaint that finding him guilty of any misconduct was itself discriminatory: the comments directed at students and student groups were separable from the manifestation of his beliefs, culpable and blameworthy, and it was open to him to articulate his views about Zionism without reference to student societies. His harassment complaint failed, and so did his challenge to the 50% contributory fault reduction, which the EAT held disclosed no error of law. The cross-appeal was dismissed in full.
The university succeeded on one point only. The EAT held that the tribunal had not sufficiently explained the basis for its conclusion that there was a 30% chance Dr Miller’s employment would have ended lawfully in any event by October 2023, so that assessment will have to be revisited. Remedy in the discrimination complaint was in any case reserved by the tribunal to a further hearing, which has yet to take place, and any application for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal remains to be seen.
Belief discrimination claims on this issue no longer stop at first instance: a binding appellate authority has confirmed that the pleaded anti-Zionist belief is protected under section 10. Employers disciplining staff over contested political expression must separate the protected belief from the manner of its manifestation, and document that distinction before moving to sanction, because this case turned on evidence that the belief itself materially influenced the decision to dismiss.
The full judgment is published on GOV.UK, alongside the EAT decision page. For the wider equality landscape practitioners are already navigating this year, see our coverage of the EHRC services Code of Practice and our checklist for advising service providers under it; the belief strand decided in Miller is distinct from the Code, and the two should not be merged.