Aysu Bicer
05 August 2026•Update: 05 August 2026
The University of Bristol has lost its appeal against a landmark employment tribunal ruling that said a professor was discriminated against when he was dismissed over his anti-Zionist beliefs.
In a judgment issued on Wednesday, the Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld the earlier decision that Professor David Miller's anti-Zionist views amounted to protected philosophical beliefs under the Equality Act 2010 and that his dismissal constituted direct discrimination.
Miller, a professor of political sociology appointed by the university in 2018, was dismissed for gross misconduct in October 2021 after making public comments about Zionism, Israel and Jewish student organizations earlier that year.
Rejecting the university’s appeal, the tribunal also endorsed the finding that Miller’s opposition to political Zionism was protected in law.
Addressing the substance of those beliefs, the judgment said: “It is coherent to describe as ‘racist’ an ideology [Zionism] that promotes the establishment of a state [in this case, Israel] for only one race of people [Jewish] in a territory that formerly contained a large number of people of a different race [Palestinians].”
“Such an ideology, which supports the migration of members of the first group into the territory with the support of an imperial power to dislodge an indigenous population, could also coherently be described as colonial and imperialistic,” it added.
Although it accepted that Bristol was pursuing legitimate objectives, including protecting students and safeguarding its reputation, it found dismissal to be a disproportionate response.
The tribunal noted that Miller’s comments were lawful, were not found to be antisemitic, did not incite violence and posed no threat to anyone’s safety, concluding that a lesser disciplinary sanction would have been appropriate.
Responding to the ruling, Miller described the decision as a “decisive” victory for the anti-Zionist movement.
“The University of Bristol’s attempt to overturn my 2024 Employment Tribunal victory has been comprehensively dismissed. We won on every single count,” he wrote on the US social media company X.
