Maya Forstater Tribunal March 2022- Thread 2

[Sophoclesthefox]

Forgive the presumption, @Mforstater, but you’re probably busy in the pub right now, or passing on all of the fan mail to you legal team so I’ve made a new thread to carry on the fascinating discussion.

Round up your cats, rabbits and weasels, and let’s go!

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From thread one, here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4498167-Maya-Forstater-hearing-starts-Monday

Hi all,

Thank you so much for all your support: emotional, intellectual, financial, spiritual(!) reading the Mumsnet feminism board is where this all started for me!

The case starts tomorrow.

It is all online. If you want to watch you need to email the tribunal for a log in to [email protected]

It kicks off at 10am - the first bit will be "admin" between the judges and the lawyers working out the timings, issues and any reporting restrictions hmm.

Once that is all sorted the judge and the panel will go away to read (probably for the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday)

I will most likely give evidence Wednesday and Thursday.

@tribunaltweets will be tweeting the whole thing (assuming they get permission from the judge)

Links to papers will go up throughout the case at www.hiyamaya.net.

Any other questions I am happy to answer them (apart from the ones where I have to say "that is for the tribunal to hear"...)

I have made a spectators guide with FAQs etc here

Lots of love

Maya

I haven't been able to get a log in, I expect after yesterday the demand is through the roof

@OnlyTheTitosaurusOfTheIceberg

IAverydefinitelyNAL but it seems a little back to front to me that the tribunal hears evidence on the organisational culture, on the nature of Maya’s tweets, on any social media policy the company may or may not have had etc etc BEFORE they consider the issue of whether or not she had employee status. To me that feels like the fundamental point - even more so than whether her belief IWORIADS TBH, grateful though I am to have that clarified by an EAT - because if Maya is considered not to have been an employee then her case fails no matters how authoritarian and non-inclusive the workplace culture was/is?

Can someone wiser and more knowledgeable than me explain why it’s done this way round?

That's a good point. Find out first if she was considered to be an employee and if yes, then review if policy/process were correctly applied .

Sorry - I'm usually good at acronyms/abbreviations, but can someone enlighten me as to IWORIADS?

TIA

And very good luck @MForstater

If this was in the High Court I would expect important issues like that to be separated off and decided initially in separate hearings but I'm wondering whether an ET is a smaller scale affair which is supposed to be a condensed procedure in which they tackle everything all in one go.

The issue about NWORIADS was an appeal against something that, very conveniently for the first ET, would conclude the case quickly.

NWORIADS: "Not Worthy Of Respect In A Democratic Society"

BIWI: Is Worth of Respect in a Democratic Society

Worthy, not Worth.

I would hope the weight of evidence is also strongly pointing towards employment/prospective employment - particularly when she was listed as personnel on the funding application.

Sadly I'm not on the panel...

Thank you @NecessaryScene and @nauticant

Just a tip for anyone joining the conference today. I thought from the wording of the link I was sent you needed a new PIN every day, but yesterday's has worked for me: now waiting for the conference host to join.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

So many of these viral genderist posts that get shared are completely idiotic.

Aren't they, tho 🙄

Social media gives a platform for people to whom you wouldn't have given the time of day, pre-Internet.

Not liking humans being called primates is a tad, erm, creationist?

Anyway, will be trying to follow today's proceedings alongside some freelance work stuff. I'm very much enjoying seeing Ben Cooper's abilities.

If you look at the evidence of "offence", the CGD staff have fallen back time and time again to "the tone of the messages". But as we've seen from BC carefully taking the CGD staff through the messages, it's clear that in many cases they misunderstood the messages, or simply didn't bother to understand what they were about. If it's all about "tone" and reasonable substance is assumed to be transphobia, then "tone" looks very weak as a cause to let someone go. Especially since you have to ask the question: what were they being motivated by when they chose to judge the messages without finding out what they were about?

I still don't have a link. I don't wish to mither Maya, so I'll follow along here.

I was also trying to figure out what WORIADS meant!

Welcome to the conference

Glad it wasn't just me @Ereshkigalangcleg!

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

I still don't have a link. I don't wish to mither Maya, so I'll follow along here.

I'll be doing the same.

All posts about what's being said gratefully received!

BC says CGD is making an extraordinary application to introduce new evidence and he has some things to say about that. EJ isn't sure.

Something's up: new evidence?

BC This will have such a huge impact on this case.

Ooh, my link has just come through!

@nauticant

If you look at the evidence of "offence", the CGD staff have fallen back time and time again to "the tone of the messages". But as we've seen from BC carefully taking the CGD staff through the messages, it's clear that in many cases they misunderstood the messages, or simply didn't bother to understand what they were about. If it's all about "tone" and reasonable substance is assumed to be transphobia, then "tone" looks very weak as a cause to let someone go. Especially since you have to ask the question: what were they being motivated by when they chose to judge the messages without finding out what they were about?

Yes, this is becoming clear. It was on the previous thread I think where someone asked 'what form of wording could Maya used to have communicated/express her belief that wouldn't have been problematic?' and I think BC did address that briefly yesterday.

Is it CGD with new evidence or BC? I'm not watching but following the tweets only. It refers to 'markers' which I dunno what they are!

Holds breath.....

BC wants to make some points about some new evidence that is going to have a 'significant impact' on the case. He plans to be brief.

1. In application email from Ms Ali for CGD, the explanation given for the late application is that it 'has become clear that the complaint of victimisation in respect of the website is in fact focused on the alumni pages.' BC says that is false. The claim is pleaded in respect of the practice of maintaining profiles on its website for former staff profiles.

1. Disclosure of the new documents this morning show a) a proper hold notice was not placed on relevant documents in accordance with well-established obligations. b) Principal point that arises from the new doc is that it shows, contrary to what MF side had been told, the respondent's solicitors said they would personally search mailboxes of a number of individuals (Ahmed, Plant etc) for relevant materials to ensure disclosure, and the new email has not previously been disclosed. Have not had proper disclosure generally or in relation to this email. There is still further information not disclosed. BC can't be expected to cross-examine Miss Schulman without proper disclosure, and won't.

1. BC position will be that even on the face of the new document that has been disclosed, the picture as to the reasons given for the reasons for the removal of MF from the website remains murky and unclear. It may be necessary to recall the claimant to describe what she saw on the website.

1. The obvious point is that on any view this application will take time.