Maya's tribunal next Tuesday (21 and 22 March)

Ahh, right, the thrust of Counsel for CGD is becoming clear, her line is that after getting the push MF was gamboling about like a Spring lamb and wasn't upset at all.

This is quite a hill to climb for Maya. She was traduced all over the media and social media, she suffered significant professional damage, but with all of this being accelerated and amplified by activists, how much of a direct causal link can be established to what CGD did rather than toxic people elsewhere?

Never ceases to amaze me how legal counsel are prepared to embrace fatuous arguments to advance their client's case. Whatever your job, even if you hate it (which she didn't, just the conditions) you don't want to lose it because you need the money! At least that's the case for the vast majority of us.
And if working with them was so awful that MF was delighted to be shot of it, that seems close to unfair dismissal to me. IANAL. Obv.

The unfair dismissal has been established. The question now is the level of unfairness in the behaviour of CGD and what was the actual nature of MF's work in order to assess how much she lost as a result.

Did they not say at some point that they failed to renew her contract on the grounds that she was transphobic, or was engaging in harassment? Or was that general twitter comment?

Placemarking

I don't know, but one thing that has come up is that you have to distinguish between "transphobe" chit-chat between people in CGD and discussions between the decision makers where that discussion fed through to the decision made not to employ MF. I believe it's this non-employing rather than simply not renewing. (It might have been both.)

OK, I think I am getting it now. A lot more complicated than I realised. Quite depressing, actually.

The hill MF has is that she's arguing that CGD were going to appoint her to a senior fellowship role and their position is that it was for a common or garden researcher role that would be suitable for anyone with a degree but no higher qualification. The higher the role, the more the salary basis and the professional harm sustained in order to calculate damages.

9.45am start tomorrow.

Right. I was under the impression that she was describing the role she already had. I hadn't read all of the Tribunal Tweets thread. Or any of it properly, it would seem.

Just catching up with this after work. Threadreader is here
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1638175740792545280.html

Right. I was under the impression that she was describing the role she already had.

As I understand it, MF is building a case of the seniority of the role she was actually engaged in as part of saying that this would have translated over into an employed role. But because her de facto role hadn't been formally defined, the tussle is to present this either as being senior or as being low grade.

Right. Ta.

Surely CGDs actions are what gave rise to the actions activists though?

Maya made her point very clearly that she wasn't listed as a consultant under the grant proposal and was listed as personnel, and having reviewed grant bids the CVs of those included in the proposal are relevant. A funder may issue a grant based on those who will run the project.

So someone with a Masters or PhD might look like a good on a grant bid but if there are no projects or papers listed under their CV section they may be considered to not have enough professional experience.

An employer can ask for whatever experience or qualification they like but so can the funders and obviously Gates or DFID grants are very competitive.

And a lead or Co-lead may not be able to guarantee that someone will stay on the project as per the original proposal for the lifespan of the project but if someone who was key to the project's success, was known to the funder and held the key relationships to the success of the project and was suddenly disappeared very soon after it was all agreed then questions would be asked.

Starting again at 9.45 today for anyone who is watching or following Tribunal Tweets, who have been brilliant covering yesterday's activity.

... a-a-and, we're back in the room.

I don't know if that was deliberate disruption or just a horrific tech fail?

The latter, i reckon...

Do people really not understand Teams/Zoom etiquette by now??

Context-free! Sorry - random screen-crasher.

Which from now on will be known as The Giant Red Jumper Invasion.

It gave me serious second-hand embarrassment, then JG seemed to think it was something more nefarious. Either/or. She'll join fly-twiddling man in the rogue's gallery of dubious Zoom behaviour.