Member P Fallow Tribunal Member J Lindsay Dr Dita Wickins-Drazilova v Represented by: Mr L G Cunningham, Advocate Instructed by: Ms A Peat, Solicitor University of Dundee — 2023

Dr Wickins-Drazilova was employed by the University of Dundee as a lecturer on a Teaching and Scholarship contract. She applied for promotion to Senior Lecturer in 2015, 2016, and again through a resubmitted 2017 process. The tribunal accepted the respondent's evidence that the Annual Review Committee and appeal committee were concerned that her applications did not yet demonstrate the sustained academic excellence required by the promotion criteria. The 2017 appeal identified a procedural issue in the Dean's report because it did not include input from the other schools in which she taught, but the tribunal did not find that the promotion decisions were made because of sex or race.

The tribunal accepted that the respondent knew the claimant was disabled from 17 August 2018. It held that she did not make any further promotion application after that date, so the direct disability-discrimination and s.15 allegations about a refusal to consider her for promotion could not succeed. The tribunal also rejected the pleaded PCP that promotion required working longer hours in addition to contractual duties. It found that the promotion process turned on evidence of academic excellence and output, not on a rule requiring longer hours. For the same reason, the indirect discrimination and reasonable-adjustment claims failed, although the tribunal noted shortcomings in how workload, communication, and adjustments were managed.

The harassment and victimisation claims were based on early SIP meeting comments, alleged remarks by Professor Mires and Dr Hothersall about workload and promotion, an away-day remark, and the handling of the grievance submitted on 31 August 2021. The tribunal accepted that the 'new girl' remark and the comment that one had to be foreign and a woman to get a job there could be capable of falling within s.26, but held that the early incidents were isolated and out of time, and that the wider allegations were not proved as alleged. It also held that the 2016 appeal against the promotion refusal did not amount to a protected act for victimisation purposes, and that no detriment because of such an act was proved.

The constructive dismissal claim failed. The tribunal found that the claimant resigned after accepting a Senior Lecturer post at the University of Birmingham, and that the 17 May 2021 email from Dr Hothersall was an ordinary return-to-work message rather than a last straw. Earlier matters were either not proved, were not repudiatory, or had been acquiesced in. The same reasoning meant there was no dismissal for Equality Act purposes under s.39 either.

Most Equality Act complaints were held to be out of time, and the tribunal refused to extend time on a just-and-equitable basis because of the length of the delay and the forensic prejudice caused by it. The only Equality Act allegation within time was the complaint about how the 31 August 2021 grievance was handled, and that too was dismissed. The tribunal therefore dismissed the claim in full.