Anti-Zionism as ‘Protected Belief’: The Case of David Miller

Abstract

This article explores the impact of the legal category of ‘protected philosophical belief’ on one of the most contested political issues today: the line between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. It focuses on the Employment Tribunal of David Miller, a sociology professor who in 2024 won a discrimination claim against Bristol University after being dismissed for contending that the university’s Jewish Student Society was a ‘political pawn’ of Israel. The article traces the genealogy of ‘protected belief’ in English law, arguing that the peculiar way Miller was required to present his views as a ‘belief’ to qualify for protection inadvertently revealed their ‘pre-judicial’ presuppositions. Paradoxically, the article argues, the more Miller’s ‘anti-Zionism’ is understood as a ‘belief’, the less it can be distinguished from antisemitism. The article then explores the legal relation between ‘belief’ and ‘manifestation’. It suggests that the university’s acceptance of Miller’s minimalist account of his core belief, and the separation of his statements into ‘active’ and ‘passive’ elements, hindered its case from the outset. Pushing for a comprehensive account of Miller’s full views would have hindered his claim for protection, making it much easier to demonstrate the proximity of his broader worldview to forms of antisemitic belief previously ruled unworthy of legal protection.