Claimant v University of St Andrews

Tribunal found that the respondent did not commit a repudiatory breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. The claimant's assertions either did not happen or did not happen as he alleged. The respondent had followed the school's workload policy consistently, offered to discuss concerns, escalated to the Master when the claimant refused to engage at school level, and acted reasonably throughout. The claimant resigned voluntarily rather than being constructively dismissed.

Tribunal found that in each of the alleged acts (failure to comply with workload policy, denying request to teach in one semester only, failure to send school-wide email about teaching award, failure to support as DoII, no Occupational Health referral, 'tone policing', referring to teaching as 'average'), the evidence was insufficient for the burden of proof to shift to the respondent. Where examined in detail (e.g. 'tone policing'), the tribunal found no racial motivation, conscious or unconscious, could be inferred.

The tribunal accepted that the use of the word 'tone' by the Deputy Head of School was unwanted conduct, but found that in context it did not relate to the protected characteristic of race. The word was used in response to objectively unprofessional emails from the claimant in a professional context, and was not related to his race for the purpose of constituting harassment.

The discriminatory constructive dismissal claim failed because the tribunal found none of the allegations relied upon were acts of race discrimination. Furthermore, it is not possible to bring a complaint of constructive dismissal by harassment under the Equality Act (McLeary v One Housing Group).