Employment tribunal UCU vs Adult Human Female makers lost?

[alsoFanOfNaomi]

According to UCU, the case has been comprehensively decided in favour of UCU:
https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/14047/Employment-Tribunal-rejects-claims-University-and-College-Union-discriminated-against-members-on-grounds-of-their-gender-critical-beliefs
However, I can't find anything confirming this; in particular, the judgement does not yet seem to be out at https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions unless I'm missing it.

Anyone know more? Disappointing, if so, though I think we did wonder about whether the legal basis (what exactly constitutes harrassment/discrimination from one's union?) would fly.

Buttars’ rosy description of the protest was ridiculous. ISTR a woman attending was spat at in the face by a male TRA at that lovely inclusive sing song carnival in the sunshine.

I saw that the judge refused to allow footage of the protests because it was late evidence.

So the logic seems to be that UCU were reasonably concerned that some of their members would be harmed by the screening and so the protest was legitimate - but what about gender critical members who were harmed by its cancellation?

The usual double standard.

Bump, because they are seeking permission to appeal and fundraising urgently for funding to do it. This case is a bit niche, I guess, and seems to have a hard time fundraising, but though IANAL I think it could be a good one to win at appeal given how appallingly many women have been treated by their unions. Please donate if you can. Searching for Adult Human Female crowdjustice finds it, though nb the old "funded" page is still there and you want the new one!

Thanks @alsoFanOfNaomiI agree this is an important one to garden for. Strong plants are needed to withstand the increase in weeds.

Is it the in defence of academic freedom one? I can’t see an update on the page I’m looking at and want to make sure I get it right?

@CarefulN0w the old and new pages are very similar, both headed In Defence of Academic Freedom and by Adult Human Female, but only the new one is accepting donations, so you can't go wrong really. Stands at £3900 out of £4600 as I type (though the text says they need £6600 so not sure whether that means they have the extra £2k from somewhere else or the total will get raised).

Text is:

As many of you will know, our claim against UCU was recently dismissed by the employment tribunal. You can read the tribunal’s reasons here. We and our legal team have been considering our next steps carefully. We know that there are many deserving gender critical cases out there and that appeals are difficult. We would not feel comfortable asking for further donations unless we believed there was a real chance of success on appeal.Our legal team’s preliminary view is that there is a real chance of success. There are many aspects of the judgment that we could criticise, but perhaps the most implausible is the tribunal’s finding that UCU would have tried to cancel the screening of a documentary film arguing against gender critical beliefs.We have until 16 July to lodge our appeal with the Employment Appeal Tribunal. We need to raise £6,600 to cover our legal costs of doing so. A judge will then decide whether we have reasonable grounds that should be allowed to proceed to a full appeal hearing.Thank you for your continued support.

Thanks

Now at £4,150

realitymatters
9h
Thank you so so much. The response has been incredible. We are immensely grateful for this show of support. We have raised over half of our target in under 48 hours! Please keep sharing so we can make this application to appeal happen.

Looking like the appeal will be on. Hopefully it will win.

I hope so. It'll be expensive, though, and this one is hard to fundraise for as it's really only a small number of people who know enough about what happened to care, let alone fund it.

I suppose I should try to explain, shouldn't I, for anyone interested? OK, biased and very partial summary: they made a documentary called Adult Human Female, in which using a bunch of different experts and some cartoons they explained some basics of the gender ideology issue. (Tbah, I don't think the film is really all that good, but keep with me here, there is at least no reason to consider it outside the bounds of free speech...) They wanted to show it at the University of Edinburgh and a bunch of people wanted to see it there. A combination of the UCU union and the student union managed to prevent it being shown, several times, through a combination of physical obstruction and the usual lies about what it represented. The filmmakers, as members of the union in question, felt they had been discriminated against by their union because of their gender critical beliefs, and the remedy for that is an Employment Tribunal (because they cover unions, not just employers, confusingly). At the hearing there was a lot of focus on things being "dogwhistles" for example, "adult human female", and the judge, in an extraordinarily incoherent judgement IMHO though IANAL, said the union had been "objectively justified" (para 172) in what they did, i.e., though the judgement doesn't quite go so far, the tribunal decided that the filmmakers were bigoted.

It cannot be often that a union is taken to an ET by members & a win in the EAT would be binding. One of the appellants is female so perhaps they would qualify for JKR's fund?

Good luck to them.

Looks like they have removed the previous fundraiser so it's now easier to find the right one. Funding currently at £4,443. Initial decision does seem to have enough flaws to make an appeal viable. If the union had just said they wouldnt get involved it would be a weaker case but the union was active against the film makers.

There may be other cases against unions to come. Sandie Peggie could sue her union for it's failure to support her. The Darlington nurses could sue their union. I imagine they may all be waiting for their ET to finish first. I can see JKR funding at least one if people apply to the fund.

Thanks for posting. Will garden tomorrow. When reading the judgement I was struck by the judge refusing the late evidence of footage of the protests/blockade. The photos that I saw were really useful in understanding the nature of that protest. It wasn't the peaceful counterprotest that might have been reasonably expected from a Union - without those images it would be hard to convey that. I thought that issue alone might be grounds for appeal but IANAL

Even if that isn't grounds for appeal in itself, if there is an appeal then they should be able to be used as evidence. (I guess they weren't in good time last time round because it wasn't expected that UCU would misrepresent the nature of the protest? Not sure.)

Gardening done this morning.

From UCU's statement
The Tribunal very carefully noted that UCU Edinburgh was not objecting to the beliefs of the claimants, who are also UCU members, they were protesting against a film which it believed presented misinformation about trans and non binary people and that was damaging to trans and non binary staff and students.

Hmmm.... so UCU respects GC beliefs, but reserves judgment on whether an expression of them is acceptable or not?

UCU Edinburgh 'believed' that the film was inaccurate about transgenderism.
I didn't follow the tribunal so I don't know how much evidence UCU E offered to support the assertion of 'misinformation', but it must have been compelling..

I wonder if all other films which may be somewhat polemic are also required to have their accuracy checked by UCU E to avoid being banned and/or aggressive demonstrations?

The statement notes that the claimants are also UCU members. They not only got no passive support from their own union, but were subjected to aggressive opposition from the local branch of their own union.

It's one thing to be let down by a lack of support from your union, but HQ actively supporting a branch that was aggressively resisting your right to freedom of expression on campus is another thing.

On what basis does UCU choose between which UCU members' beliefs to support? And what 'damage' to which staff and students is a matter of most concern to them .. ?

In short, I'm glad they are appealing!

Drat, wrong one is still there. The right one shows as the second in my google search. Adding this phrase would probably go straight to the right one. As many of you will know, our claim against UCU was recently dismissed by the employment tribunal. Now at £5,583 of £6,600 target.

What a shame. I wonder if the context of the SC judgement may also change the perspective of whether the film is deemed accurate. I can't remember the actual content but so much of what TRAs used to claim wrong is now proved not only a reasonable position to argue for but the actual state of current law. You can't deem current law bigoted and unsayable can you?

Definitely going to support this one. We have a right to hold GC views and talk about them (Forstater). We have a right to women only spaces and that means no men regardless of identity (FWS). No bloody use if just talking about it is supposed to justify bullying by someone's own union.

Will they be able to submit the footage to the appeal tribunal though- dont they usually say no new evidence? Maybe if the fact they weren't allowed to is actually part of the appeal?

Noticed that the donation list apparently includes £10 from a UCU branch. Genuine or someone having a laugh? Either way at £5,853 it's edging them up.

I am a former UCU elected office-holder and national committee member. UCU (both at branch level and nationally) treated the filmmakers of AHF appallingly. The extent to which the union has thrown women’s rights under a bus is just horrifying. An EAT win would be so incredibly important for all UCU’s GC members.

But ETs against unions are incredibly difficult to win, given how the relevant law is structured. There have been several ETs against UCU that have failed despite UCU having behaved appallingly and treated members abysmally. But even if the appeal fails, the cost of defending it will provide some accountability, in that there will be internal pressure to change behaviour to avoid future legal costs in similar cases. The AHF case is sufficiently niche that any precedent set by a failed EAT will be difficult to apply in the defenses against future GC cases.

I came here to say that! Intriguing.

Re it being niche: hopefully, this is one of those cases where if we win it's huge and if we lose it's not. I was interested by the idea (which I can't find again now that I look) that if UCU win here it means they will be allowed, perhaps obliged, to act against any event some of their members object to. That would be something we'd need to test!