. . . or seen as valediction for contemporary antisemitism masquerading as antizionism, depending on one’s opinion or stake in this controversial saga, David Miller, Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol, won his case for unfair dismissal at the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against his former employer who had dismissed him for his post because of their determination that he had not met the standards of behaviour expected from staff.
The dismissal related to allegations from students that Professor Miller had engaged in antisemitism during one of his lectures. He was ultimately cleared of any unlawful behaviour and in August 2026, after an appeal by Bristol University authorities against the earlier judgement, the EAT upheld the 2024 employment tribunal findings that Professor Miller’s anti-Zionist beliefs constituted a protected philosophical belief under Section 10 of the Equalities Act 2010.[1]
The finding that Professor’s Miller’s beliefs had statutory protection goes to the heart of the debates surrounding his actions. For his supporters, the EAT ruling upheld the principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech against a concerted campaign by Zionist and Israeli backed lobbies to silence him. For his opponents, Miller was an avatar for the rising antisemitism on and off campus, noting his stigmatisation of Jewish communal organisations like the Community Security Trust (CST) as agents of the Israeli state. Exactly which antizionist beliefs have legal protection and to what extent and precisely what sort of philosophical beliefs enjoy this privilege are also raised by the EAT ruling. At the outset, I wish to state that the bar of academic/scholarly/literary opinion and judgement is a much better forum for the resolution of or judgement on the types on intellectual imbroglios like the Miller case than the blunt instrument of the law. That Professor Miller has been vindicated in law and intends to return to his post should not preclude critical scrutiny of the ideas he promotes and his research methodology.
But first it is necessary to give an outline of how the controversy played out. In 2019, Miller said that Israel was supporting interfaith events involving Muslims and Jews as a trojan horse to increase the acceptance of Zionism in the Muslim community. As an example, he mentioned a gathering of Muslims and Jews at the East London mosque.[2]
Sabrina Miller, Campaigns Officer at Bristol University’s Jewish Students Society (JSoc) and who had campaigned for Miller’s dismissal, wrote a number of articles about him. According to Ms Miller, JSoc had complained about Miller’s “Harms of the Powerful” lecture module. Miller had used a Powerpoint slide during one lecture, which he had created in 2013, aiming to demonstrate the existence of a Zionist network in Britain. Among this presentation was a description of Zionism as one of “The Five Pillars of Islamophobia. The University rejected the complaint on the grounds that Miller’s lectures did not contain any material that was hostile to Jews and therefore could not be considered antisemitic.[3]
On 17 March 2021 Bristol University announced that it had begun an investigation into Miller on the basis of a series of comments Miller had had made in the recent past on Zionism and its influence on British politics and Jewish communal life. The probe focused largely on a nine-minute video he posted on You Tube in which he accused Israel of an “all out onslaught on the left globally” and demanded “the end of Zionism as a functioning ideology”. He further accused the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) of endangering the safety of Muslim students on campus as it “is constitutionally bound to promoting Israel” and the alleged “UJS lobbying for Israel us a threat to the safety of Arab and Muslim students as well as of Jewish students and indeed of all critics of Israel”. He went on to asset:
The finding that Professor’s Miller’s beliefs had statutory protection goes to the heart of the debates surrounding his actions. For his supporters, the EAT ruling upheld the principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech against a concerted campaign by Zionist and Israeli backed lobbies to silence him. For his opponents, Miller was an avatar for the rising antisemitism on and off campus, noting his stigmatisation of Jewish communal organisations like the Community Security Trust (CST) as agents of the Israeli state. Exactly which antizionist beliefs have legal protection and to what extent and precisely what sort of philosophical beliefs enjoy this privilege are also raised by the EAT ruling. At the outset, I wish to state that the bar of academic/scholarly/literary opinion and judgement is a much better forum for the resolution of or judgement on the types on intellectual imbroglios like the Miller case than the blunt instrument of the law. That Professor Miller has been vindicated in law and intends to return to his post should not preclude critical scrutiny of the ideas he promotes and his research methodology.
But first it is necessary to give an outline of how the controversy played out. In 2019, Miller said that Israel was supporting interfaith events involving Muslims and Jews as a trojan horse to increase the acceptance of Zionism in the Muslim community. As an example, he mentioned a gathering of Muslims and Jews at the East London mosque.[2]
Sabrina Miller, Campaigns Officer at Bristol University’s Jewish Students Society (JSoc) and who had campaigned for Miller’s dismissal, wrote a number of articles about him. According to Ms Miller, JSoc had complained about Miller’s “Harms of the Powerful” lecture module. Miller had used a Powerpoint slide during one lecture, which he had created in 2013, aiming to demonstrate the existence of a Zionist network in Britain. Among this presentation was a description of Zionism as one of “The Five Pillars of Islamophobia. The University rejected the complaint on the grounds that Miller’s lectures did not contain any material that was hostile to Jews and therefore could not be considered antisemitic.[3]
On 17 March 2021 Bristol University announced that it had begun an investigation into Miller on the basis of a series of comments Miller had had made in the recent past on Zionism and its influence on British politics and Jewish communal life. The probe focused largely on a nine-minute video he posted on You Tube in which he accused Israel of an “all out onslaught on the left globally” and demanded “the end of Zionism as a functioning ideology”. He further accused the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) of endangering the safety of Muslim students on campus as it “is constitutionally bound to promoting Israel” and the alleged “UJS lobbying for Israel us a threat to the safety of Arab and Muslim students as well as of Jewish students and indeed of all critics of Israel”. He went on to asset:
There is a real question of abuse here – of Jewish students on British campuses being used by a violent foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing.
He said that the complaints by Jewish student groups against him were part of “a drive to stop anyone speaking out about Palestine”.[4]
In that video also he condemned the contested IHRA definition of antisemitism as “manufactured controversies around Judeophobia – such as in my case – are being used to silence criticism of Zionism and Israel” which was the purpose of the definition “in practice”. He mused that “If Saudi Arabia was engaged in a similar censorship campaign on British campuses, we would laugh it out of the room.”[5]
In my view, it is appropriate at this juncture to point out that that the surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party of Chinese students and the violent targeting of dissidents on British campuses by tyrannical Middle Eastern regimes like Iraq under Saddam Hussein; Libya under Colonel Gadaffi and the Islamic Republic of Iran would hardly qualify to be laughed out of court as they have actually occurred.
Avon and Somerset Constabulary launched an investigation into possible hate crime but found no evidence with which to pursue it. Battle lines soon formed for and against the main protagonist in this latest cause celebre over free speech, antisemitism and the Israel/Palestine conflict. Marie van der Zyl, then President of the Board of Deputies for British Jews, said in a letter on 19 February 2021 that Miller’s “increasingly hysterical attacks on British Jewish organisations were raising the prospect of real physical harm”. She cited Miller’s “particular obsession” with the Community Security Trust (CST), the body which monitors and collates attacks on British Jews and arranges security for Jewish communal buildings like synagogues and schools, which he had said, “should be under investigation for its ties with the State of Israel.” The then Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire, whose constituency included Bristol University, denounced Miller’s remarks as did the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees.[6]
On 4 March 2021 historian David Feldman, a critic of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, wrote that Miller’s work on Israel and Zionism was in the tradition of ‘conspiracy theorists [who] have pointed to Jews as the malign force driving the modern world. In April 2021, 550 academics including Simon Schama and Simon Sebag Montefiore signed a letter condemning Professor Miller. Support for Miller came from the Iranian regime backed Press TV network which wrote that there was a concerted campaign against Professor Miller” and “intense activity by the Zionist lobby across the length and breadth of the British political landscape”.[7]
Bristol University terminated Miller’s employment with “immediate effect” on 1 October 2021 as “he did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff." The precise reasons for the university’s conclusion were confidential but the Guardian reported they were understood not to cover the content of lectures. The university disciplinary hearing involved a third-party investigation by a QC who found Miller’s comments “did not constitute unlawful speech.”[8]
In response to Miller’s sacking, a Change.Org petition was set up which gathered over 40,000 signatures. An open letter to the university was signed by hundreds of public intellectuals and academics including world renowned figures such as Noam Chomsky and Professor Judith Butler as well as several dozen Bristol University academics calling for his reinstatement. This letter stated that
In that video also he condemned the contested IHRA definition of antisemitism as “manufactured controversies around Judeophobia – such as in my case – are being used to silence criticism of Zionism and Israel” which was the purpose of the definition “in practice”. He mused that “If Saudi Arabia was engaged in a similar censorship campaign on British campuses, we would laugh it out of the room.”[5]
In my view, it is appropriate at this juncture to point out that that the surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party of Chinese students and the violent targeting of dissidents on British campuses by tyrannical Middle Eastern regimes like Iraq under Saddam Hussein; Libya under Colonel Gadaffi and the Islamic Republic of Iran would hardly qualify to be laughed out of court as they have actually occurred.
Avon and Somerset Constabulary launched an investigation into possible hate crime but found no evidence with which to pursue it. Battle lines soon formed for and against the main protagonist in this latest cause celebre over free speech, antisemitism and the Israel/Palestine conflict. Marie van der Zyl, then President of the Board of Deputies for British Jews, said in a letter on 19 February 2021 that Miller’s “increasingly hysterical attacks on British Jewish organisations were raising the prospect of real physical harm”. She cited Miller’s “particular obsession” with the Community Security Trust (CST), the body which monitors and collates attacks on British Jews and arranges security for Jewish communal buildings like synagogues and schools, which he had said, “should be under investigation for its ties with the State of Israel.” The then Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire, whose constituency included Bristol University, denounced Miller’s remarks as did the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees.[6]
On 4 March 2021 historian David Feldman, a critic of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, wrote that Miller’s work on Israel and Zionism was in the tradition of ‘conspiracy theorists [who] have pointed to Jews as the malign force driving the modern world. In April 2021, 550 academics including Simon Schama and Simon Sebag Montefiore signed a letter condemning Professor Miller. Support for Miller came from the Iranian regime backed Press TV network which wrote that there was a concerted campaign against Professor Miller” and “intense activity by the Zionist lobby across the length and breadth of the British political landscape”.[7]
Bristol University terminated Miller’s employment with “immediate effect” on 1 October 2021 as “he did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff." The precise reasons for the university’s conclusion were confidential but the Guardian reported they were understood not to cover the content of lectures. The university disciplinary hearing involved a third-party investigation by a QC who found Miller’s comments “did not constitute unlawful speech.”[8]
In response to Miller’s sacking, a Change.Org petition was set up which gathered over 40,000 signatures. An open letter to the university was signed by hundreds of public intellectuals and academics including world renowned figures such as Noam Chomsky and Professor Judith Butler as well as several dozen Bristol University academics calling for his reinstatement. This letter stated that
Professor Miller is an eminent scholar, is known internationally for exposing the role that powerful actors and well-resourced co-ordinated networks play in manipulating and stage-managing public debates including on racism.
A separate letter signed by hundreds of Jewish supporters of Miller, stated that:
Jewish opinion on Zionism has always been diverse and that the attacks on Miller will chill free speech on Israel if left unchallenged.[9]
In 2023, Miller commended employment tribunal proceedings, claiming “unfair dismissal, breach of contract and discrimination on grounds of religion or belief” and was duly vindicated by the tribunal on 5 February 2024. A statement from Miller’s solicitors said that Miller successfully claimed discrimination based on his philosophical belief that Zionism is “inherently racist, imperialist and colonial” was a protected characteristic under equality legislation. The judgement did say that there was a thirty per cent chance he would have been sacked for additional social media comments he made two months after his sacking had he still been employed by Bristol University. In August 2026 the EAT dismissed the university’s appeal, confirming the protection of his philosophical beliefs under the Equality Act. Professor Miller has since stated his intention to return to his former post.
So ran the course of an employment dispute which became a crucible for the discussion of so many issues related as to what exactly are the boundaries of academic inquiry and the integrity of it and free speech generally versus the sensibilities of an ethno-religious community or some constituent parts of it which in turn raises the questions of the plurality of thought and the arbiters of opinion within that community – British Jewry. Writing from a Jewish and Zionist perspective, Gill Levy gives a candid and refreshingly clear analysis of the issues at stake. He starts from the observation that:
a functioning democracy has to protect thought and belief it dislikes, not just thought it likes. Take away the principle that lets any ugly belief be protected and you take away the same principle that protects Jews’ beliefs in Israel’s religious significance or in Jewish self-determination from being treated as a sackable offence.[10]
He goes on to make the point that the tribunal had found David Miller’s philosophical beliefs “to be a qualified protection, not a license.” Miller’s belief “passed the legal test in large part because, cross-examined other oath, he said he was not supportive or open to the use of violence as a means of opposing Zionism” which the tribunal accepted. He states that tweets he posted after 7 October, including #FromtheRivertotheSea “were kept out of the case precisely because they lay outside the narrower belief he had pleaded and defended.”[11]
So, in Levy’s interpretation, the main takeaway in the Miller case, belief is protected not the use of violence (and I would argue the advancement of undemocratic means to pursue it). To take this logic further, Islam is a protected belief, but the outpourings of hate preachers like Abu Hamza are not. Belief in a United Ireland or the maintenance of Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, Scottish, Basque, Catalan independence are protected by the Equality Act; the use of violence or armed struggle in pursuit of these goals are not.[12]
Levy concludes by stating that if Antizionism clears the bar as a protected belief, then Zionism does too. Furthermore, when the Public Sector Equality Duty applies in the very act that protects David Miller every police force, local authority and public body must eliminate discrimination against holders of that belief, advance their equality of opportunity and foster good relations between Zionists and everyone else.[13]
To conclude, no matter how offensive David Miller’s beliefs are to those affected by them, they should be challenged using the weapons of intellect, reason and scholastic evidence not the law. Bearing in mind David Miller’s record in contributing to conspiracy theories over the Syrian White Knights as agents of Al-Queda and Western intelligence services and the denial of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons assault on the town of Douma in 2017 (proved conclusively as regime atrocity by Bellingham Open Source intelligence), it should not be too difficult for competent scholars to bore holes in his conspiracist narratives around Zionism and the antisemitic tropes about Jewish global influence that they echo.
References
[1] Wikipedia
[2] Wikipedia
[3] Wikipedia
[4] Lee Harpin, 2021. Academic calls Bristol JSoc ‘Israel’s pawn’ Jewish Chronicle.18 February.
[5] Ibid
[6] Wikipedia
[7] Wikipedia
[8] Wikipedia
[9] Wikipedia
[10] Gill Levy, 2026. David Miller’s win is not our loss – it is the law protecting even repugnant beliefs. Jewish Chronicle. Opinion 11 August.
[11] Ibid
[12] Ibid
[13] Ibid
[1] Wikipedia
[2] Wikipedia
[3] Wikipedia
[4] Lee Harpin, 2021. Academic calls Bristol JSoc ‘Israel’s pawn’ Jewish Chronicle.18 February.
[5] Ibid
[6] Wikipedia
[7] Wikipedia
[8] Wikipedia
[9] Wikipedia
[10] Gill Levy, 2026. David Miller’s win is not our loss – it is the law protecting even repugnant beliefs. Jewish Chronicle. Opinion 11 August.
[11] Ibid
[12] Ibid
[13] Ibid
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
No comments