Cambridge University tried to shut down a whistleblower who raised concerns about bullying and misogyny amid concerns that his disclosures might damage its reputation, a tribunal found.
Professor Neil Wyn Evans, Professor of Astrophysics at the university’s Institute of Astronomy, brought the whistleblowing complaint.
He said in a 2021 email to a senior academic that he feared then-director of the Institute of Astronomy Richard McMahon was “planning to make (a female colleague) unemployed, as part of a personal vendetta”.
He wrote: “There is a bad history of misogyny to female administrators at the top of the IoA.
“I am terrified of history repeating itself here.”
In a 162-page written judgment, an employment tribunal panel upheld 11 of 14 complaints made by Prof Wyn Evans.
The panel found that the handling of the matter within the University was “problematic and deeply unsatisfactory”.
They referred to a “clear pattern of trying to shut down (Prof Wyn Evans’) complaints, and to protect the University from any possible damage arising out of (his) protected disclosures”.
The judgment comes after, separately, the university came under pressure in a high-profile plagiarism row involving Professor Jason Arday who quit last week.
In their judgment in the matter of Prof Wyn Evans, the panel said: “The picture which emerges is one of repeated extreme delay, complaints not being addressed, decisions which seemed opaque, and the shutting down of complaints abruptly in the sense that the thing being complained about remained unresolved.”
It said that “over time, an institutional mindset developed in which (Prof Wyn Evans) came to be viewed as a source of difficulty and continuing reputational risk due to his protected disclosures which might damage the Institute and the University”.
At the hearing earlier this year, Prof Wyn Evans was accused of “shedding crocodile tears” and having “weaponised the death” of a former colleague who took her own life.
The judgment said these were “incredibly serious challenges of someone who was complaining about being victimised for whistleblowing”.
The panel said they “were not persuaded that (Prof Wyn Evans’) expressed emotion in the hearing was false or dramatised for our benefit”.
Criticising the university, they said that “pre-determined outcomes appeared to have been rubber-stamped”.
Cambridge’s vice-chancellor Deborah Prentice, who was one of the respondents in the tribunal, was also criticised in the written judgment.
The panel said they “reject the evidence of Professor Prentice” that her response to a grievance was drafted with the assistance of a colleague.
“We find the response was not drafted with the assistance of (the colleague), rather we find that it was written solely by (the colleague) and then presented to the vice chancellor as a fait accompli,” the panel said.
“Professor Prentice had very little to do with it, save for putting her name to it.”
The matter is to proceed to a remedy hearing.
Cambridge University said in a statement that they “acknowledge the Employment Tribunal’s judgment” and are “carefully reviewing it”.
“We will now take time to reflect on the findings in detail,” the statement said.
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