Cambridgedeborah prenticeDiscriminationJason ArdayUniversitiesUniversity of Cambridge Prefer us on Google

University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Deborah Prentice breached whistleblowing protections, according to the judgment of an employment tribunal this week.

Wyn Evans, a professor of astrophysics at Cambridge, had brought a legal case against the University for tolerating misogynistic bullying, also accusing bosses of retaliating against whistleblowers. Prentice was named in Evans’s case, and was cross-examined by the tribunal over her role in handling accusations of bullying.

The unanimous judgment, published yesterday, found that the Vice-Chancellor was responsible for “mishandling” Evans’s grievances. It also stated that Prentice oversaw “a pattern of complaints being ignored or dismissed without examination”. According to the tribunal, “there was a shared desire to close down whistleblowing complaints which might be damaging to Cambridge University and the Institute of Astronomy.” The University’s handling of the matter was described as “problematic and deeply unsatisfactory”, while the evidence Prentice presented during her cross-examination was also deemed “unsatisfactory”.

Evans, who last year ran to be the University’s chancellor on an anti-bullying platform, alleged that one female academic had been “hounded” out of her job, while others had been left “frightened” by “aggressive professors”. In a written submission to the tribunal, one of the female staff...

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