Bristol University refused to defend me - sacked professor

Prof Miller claimed "Zionist organisations" had targeted UK universities through a "censorship campaign"

An academic facing criticism over his comments about Israel says his employer failed to defend him when he was being "attacked and defamed".

Professor David Miller was criticised for views he allegedly expressed while working at the University of Bristol.

He was then sacked in 2021 after a disciplinary hearing found he did not meet its "standards of behaviour".

Speaking at his tribunal, Prof Miller said he was targeted by groups that "launched attacks on academic freedom".

The academic drew controversy during a lecture at the university in 2019, when he said the Zionist movement was one of five pillars driving Islamophobia in the UK, the tribunal heard.

The University of Bristol subsequently got a complaint from the Community Security Trust charity, which said his lecture was a "false, vile... antisemitic slur".

An investigation heard the professor of political sociology's behaviour led to Jewish students "being subjected to weeks of harassment and abuse".

But a report into academic freedom of expression concluded his comments "did not constitute unlawful speech".

Denies backlash

Giving evidence at an employment tribunal at the Bristol Civil Justice Centre on Tuesday, Prof Miller said Bristol University "refused to defend me against things it knew to be untrue, things which were very damaging to me".

Asked about abuse directed at the then-president of the Bristol University Jewish Society (JSoc), Edward Isaacs, as a result of his criticism of Prof Miller, the academic denied there was any such backlash.

Previously employed as a professor of sociology at the universities of Bath and Strathclyde, Prof Miller told the tribunal JSoc was a "racist" group because it supported Zionism.

Speaking shortly after his dismissal, the former lecturer said the university "embarrassed itself" by "capitulating to a pressure campaign... overseen and directed by a hostile foreign government".

The employment tribunal continues.