The University of Greenwich, Mr Russell Brockett & Mr Ross Geddes were found guilty of Racial Discrimination and/or Victimisation by an Ashford Tribunal Chaired Porfessor Rideout of University College London. The AUT & NATFHE merged to form the University College Union (UCU) refused to provide support to Dr Deman erroneously believing that there were no prospects of success. However, the Ashford Tribunal found as follows:“Mr Geddes was capable of making racist comments” ……In our view, the Applicant was on this occasion genuinely of the opinion that the remark was racist. We consider that we are entitled to infer racial discrimination in that instance.” [para 70].
“Whichever account of the words used is preferred, the remark is unquestionably a racist stereotype and Mr Geddes is revealed as someone capable of ethnic stereotype.”[para 91].
“…comment made in at the Staff Assessment Panel meeting of 23 June 1999, at which Mr Geddes described half the subject group as “brain dead” and the other half as “idle bastards”. Given the clear indication of racist attitudes entertained by Mr Geddes, we believe that the proper inference to draw is that this remark was capable of interpretation as a from of racial discrimination and that the Applicant did so interpret”.
As to Russell Brockett, Director of Personnel, the Tribunals found as follows:
“We consider, however, that a serious procedural irregularity has occurred, depriving the Applicant of the right to a fair hearing. ”[para 87].
“In order to attract the defence, both elements must be present, but in our view even if this were not so it would be impossible to say that in a number of cases the Applicant’s complaints were made in bad faith.” ….In our view, that the alleged trouble-maker was protected by section 2 of the Act and the disadvantage to him occasioned by Mr Brockett’s actions inevitably constitute example of victimisation.” [para 117]
“We have said Russell Brockett was acting in effect as prosecuting counsel and that it was for the Applicant to defend himself. That does not alter the fact however, that Brockett may have been motivated to take that position by his desire to get rid of the Applicant.” [para 123].
“In our view, the proper inference to draw from the facts is that Mr Brockett had decided, probably some time in June or July, that his duty to deal with the Applicant’s trouble-making, albeit trouble-making by the raising of allegations of racial discrimination, in seeking the dismissal of the Applicant.” [para 124].
However, despite the Tribunal's above findings no action has been taken against the Labour Party Racist mafia led by Baroness Blackstone.
Greenwich EO Claim & Sir William McPherson Report:
Further, the University of Greenwich had been in breach of his own Equal Opportunity commitments as exemplified in its EO report and in the THES, though clamour for factual substantiation:
“Black and ethnic minority constitute 7% of staff who have returned monitoring information. This figure is considerably lower than the percentage of ethnic minority students (28%). The ethnic diversity of staff is also considerably less than the diversity of the population of the London region (20.2%).”
The official response (in reference to Sir William McPherson’s inquiry into the racist murder of Steve Lawrence) to the University Court was discussed in a joint consultative group meeting of the NATFHE, AUT (on page 3 of the minutes). Mr Brockett, Director of Personnel, said, “there had been only a small number (2?) of complaints of racial harassment that required investigation.” Clearly, Mr Brockett’s claim is contrary to the evidence gathered by our volunteer as the following cases are registered in the Ashford Employment Tribunal against the University of Greenwich, case #51442/96, 47503/96, 2302552/97, 2305534/97, 1102038/97, 1102147/97, 1100918/98, 1101208/98, 1101486/98, 1101610/98, 1102044/98, 1101341/99, 11014699/99, 1101618/99 and since then Dr Nejad, Dr Mehdian, Dr Nissan and many other have made claims against the University of Greenwich but got no support from the unions. This does not include a number of cases, which were pursued through internal process, reported to the CRE and REC and swept under the rug. The Union leadership and the Attorney General has ignored the fact, that the Respondents like the Queen’s University of Belfast has paid millions in damages in the last couple of years and there are numerous pending applications against the respondents. We wonder why they do not burn midnight oil to bring changes in the Employment Act to bring proceeding against these serial Respondents?
In fact, the University failed to make progress in spite of its court’s resolution in March 1999,
“We suggest that the university conduct a survey among all staff to determine, more realistically, the extent of institutional racism and individual’s experience of it.”
Unfortunately, the Unions like NATFHE & AUT [UCU] did not make any comments in the meeting in spite of their outcry against institutional racism within their organisations and in the HE & FE sector for window dressing. In fact, they proactively represented the management although Mr. Deman was the member of both the unions.
The above statistics definitely refutes University’s claim on equal opportunity. In fact, in the opinions of many leaders of the ethnic community, the University of Greenwich is one of the worse employers located in the Racist Capital of Europe in the new millennium. In the above background the Greenwich Racial for Equality Council has included investigation of Institutional Racism at the University of Greenwich as a priority in their work programme 2000-2001 but abandoned it despite the findings of racial discrimination and victimisation [Enemy Within].
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