Abstract

Excerpted from Matthew Bolton, Anti-Zionism as 'Protected Belief’: The Case of David Miller, 55 Industrial Law Journal 213 (March 2026) (137 footnotes) (Full Document).

The concept of a legally-protected 'belief’ was introduced into English law in 2003, aimed at protecting members of religious groups from workplace discrimination. It is doubtful that lawmakers intended for the concept of 'belief’ to play a totemic role in some of the most charged disputes in contemporary politics: indeed, initial guidance stated it was not “intended to protect against discrimination on grounds of “political opinion”’. And yet in the years since, so many different political activists--from 'ethical vegans’ and foxhunting abolitionists to British National Party members, Trotskyists, and anti-'political correctness’ campaigners--have attempted to have their worldviews declared a legally-protected 'belief’ that it could almost be regarded as a core strategy of political movements today. Legal protection of a 'belief’ unlocks a set of rights that are viewed as carving out space for political expression both within and without the workplace. The status of 'protected belief’ (PB) increasingly acts as a form of public legitimation for political movements and the first line of defence against opponents, particularly in the context of a social media-driven 'cancel culture’. The rising political salience of PB is expressed in the number of belief-focused Employment Tribunals (ETs), which have generated unprecedented levels of media coverage and public debate.

This article examines one such ET, centred upon one of the most contentious debates of our time: the relationship between anti-Israel politics and antisemitism. In 2023, David Miller, a sociology professor at Bristol University, was dismissed after becoming embroiled in a conflict with members of the university’s Jewish Student Society (JSoc), who had complained that the content of his lecture on the 'transnational Zionist movement’ was antisemitic. Miller then accused JSoc members of being 'political pawns’ of the Israeli state, describing the latter as a 'violent, racist, foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing’. These and other statements generated a large public response, with many observers regarding them to be antisemitic. Multiple legal rulings in both European and domestic courts have established that antisemitic “beliefs’ should not be granted legal protection. Miller, however, denied he had done or said anything antisemitic. Instead, he argued that his subsequent dismissal was due to his 'anti-Zionist beliefs’, which were entirely distinct from antisemitism, and which merited legal protection. He therefore claimed that he had suffered unlawful discrimination on the basis of 'belief’. In February 2024, the Tribunal found that Miller’s 'anti-Zionism’ did qualify as a PB, and that the university had discriminated against him.

Grappling with a number of crucial political and legal questions--from defining antisemitism to the limits of academic freedom--the Miller case caused controversy. Lord John Mann, the UK government’s 'independent advisor on antisemitism,’ described the decision as 'ludicrous’ and called for Parliament to intervene. Others viewed it as a significant step in the defence of free expression and academic freedom in the face of attempts to conflate antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israel. At the time of writing, the judgment is being appealed.

Given the public interest in the case and the variety of pressing problems it raises, Miller merits sustained scrutiny. This article, therefore, proceeds as follows. First, I trace the genealogy of PB in English law, tracking its development from the European Convention on Human Rights (EHRC) to recent case law. Turning to the Miller case, I suggest that the peculiar way the law required Miller’s 'belief’ to be presented to qualify for protection--in particular, what was needed to make it a 'belief’ rather than an 'opinion or viewpoint’--forced what I term the 'pre-judicial’ underpinnings of his anti-Zionism to the surface. In order to make his views fit into the law’s structure of 'belief’, Miller argued that his research on the 'Zionist movement’ followed, rather than acted as the basis for, his unfalsifiable convictions about the inherently malign character of Zionism. Paradoxically, the more Miller’s 'anti-Zionism’ is understood as a normative 'belief’, the less it can be distinguished from antisemitism, and the less it is protected as a matter of law. Similarly, I argue that the more Miller’s research is understood as being derived from a set of prior convictions that are impervious to evidence, the less it fulfils the basic norms of scholarly practice that are the condition for the additional legal protections granted to academic free expression.

I then explore the relation between 'belief’ and 'manifestation’, setting out the legal background and its application in Miller. I argue that the university’s acceptance of Miller’s minimalist account of his beliefs hindered its case from the outset. Pushing for a comprehensive account of Miller’s full views would have complicated his claim for their protection. Showing how Miller’s pleaded belief about Zionism was, contra the judgment, inseparable from his depiction of the 'transnational Zionist movement’ that underlay his attack on the JSoc, would have made it much easier to demonstrate the proximity of Miller’s Weltanschauung to the types of antisemitic belief previously ruled unworthy of legal protection.

[ . . . ]

The Miller case raises multiple issues at the forefront of the law around protected belief, free expression and academic freedom. That his case happened to centre on one of the most controversial political issues of recent years, the line between antisemitism and the legitimate criticism of Israel, only increased its significance. This article has focused on two key aspects of the case. First, I suggested that, notwithstanding convincing critiques of the broader suitability of the law around protected belief for cases regarding academic free expression, in this particular case the distinction the law makes between a 'belief’ and an opinion or viewpoint did, in fact, successfully reveal the 'pre-judicial’, non-scholarly and quasi-conspiratorial basis of Miller’s views on Zionism and the 'transnational Zionist movement’. However, I then argued that by accepting at face value Miller’s minimalist account of his views--that is, by severing his description of Zionism as 'racist, imperialistic and colonial’ from his grand vision of a single, cohesive Zionist network stretching from the State of Israel all the way to Bristol JSoc, and by attaching normative weight to the first element but not the second--the court failed to attain a comprehensive account of Miller’s full beliefs. I suggested that had the court, following the decision in Thomas, considered a wider range of evidence about Miller’s views, his belief would not have gained protection under the Grainger criteria. This is because those views, if understood as producing the kind of moral imperative that distinguishes beliefs from opinions, would necessitate the targeting of British Jewish communal organisations, including JSocs on campus, due to their supposed malicious activity as key nodes in the global Zionist network.

The Miller judgment undoubtedly considered the legal complexities of the relation between belief and manifestation in great depth, and by no means exonerated or excused Miller’s behaviour. But by too easily accepting that Miller’s views on Zionism had no necessary connection with those on the “transnational Zionist movement,’ and by concluding that Miller’s dismissal was ultimately due to the former rather than the latter, the judgment inadvertently made Miller’s case a cause celebre for those concerned about the freedom to express support for the Palestinian cause per se. The risk is that in so doing, that cause becomes associated with a virulent brand of conspiracy theorising that, whether by effect or intent, could be seen as activating an all-too-familiar set of antisemitic concepts and narratives, including the legitimation of attacks on Jewish organisations and individuals.

Matthew Bolton is a UKRI/MSCA Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Law, Queen Mary University of London.