Ms Kara Thorndike v Falmouth University — 2022

Ms Kara Thorndike applied for and was granted a Falmouth Doctoral Studentship in or about June 2021. She claimed that the terms of the studentship indirectly discriminated against her on grounds of age and sex, including by a provision said to require employees or workers to live on campus or within commutable distance of the university. The respondent denied that the arrangement fell within Part 5 of the Equality Act 2010 and took a preliminary point that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction because the studentship was not a contract of employment or a contract personally to do work under section 83(2)(a).

The Tribunal heard evidence from the claimant and from David Prior, the respondent's Director of Research. It accepted the respondent's evidence that the expectations in section 2.1 of the studentship terms and conditions were not contractual requirements and that there was no sanction or removal mechanism if a student did not co-author research outputs, contribute to teaching, engage in preliminary research for funding bids, or take part in knowledge exchange or public engagement. The Tribunal also accepted that teaching work, where it happened, was subject to separate employment contracts with Falmouth Staffing Limited and was paid separately from the studentship stipend.

Applying section 83(2)(a) of the Equality Act 2010 and the authorities cited, including Ready Mixed Concrete and Varnish v British Cycling Federation, the Tribunal held that the claimant was neither a limb A nor a limb B worker and was not an apprentice. It found that the dominant purpose of the arrangement was to allow the claimant to carry out her own research so that she might be awarded a PhD, while receiving living expenses through the stipend, rather than to require her to do work personally for the university.

On that basis, the Tribunal decided that the claimant's studentship was not employment for the purposes of the Equality Act and that it therefore lacked jurisdiction to hear the discrimination claim. The claim was dismissed and no monetary remedy was awarded.