Judge tells sacked Lincoln lecturer he wasn’t discriminated against for being ‘anti-PC’

Dr Andrew Dunn, a former senior lecturer in social policy at Lincoln Uni, has been told that he has no right to be anti PC by an employment judge after he claimed that his left-wing colleagues "hounded" him out.

Dr Dunn claimed unfair dismissal after he was disciplined and eventually dismissed from his post due to disagreements with his colleagues. He claimed that he was discriminated against for his anti-PC beliefs, but this was disregarded the Judge Blackwell last month, who ruled: "The belief that the tendency to favour what is palatable in social policy discussions over the truth (in colloquial terms this tendency is known as political correctness), is not a philosophical belief that has the protection of section 10 of the Equality Act 2010."

As part of a claim for unfair dismissal, he told an employment tribunal how the university’s "discrimination" against him started in early 2015 when his career was "really taking off".

A Lincoln Uni spokesman said: "The claims by a former employee made in this case were dismissed by a tribunal panel. We welcome diversity of opinion and debate on our campus while treating staff, students and visitors with dignity and respect."

Dr Andrew Dunn was dismissed from the University of Lincoln in August 2017

To support promotion for his book, in January 2015, Dunn, 45, set up a Twitter account, but was soon attacked with some labelling him a "Tory bigot", which left him astonished to see his "left-wing" colleagues join in.

Sue Bond-Taylor, who is a another lecturer in social policy, contacted Dunn's abuser on Twitter and urged him not to "discount the whole team off the back of the work of one member of staff".

Dr Dunn claims that whilst this abuse was ongoing, the deputy head of the University's school of social and political sciences appeared to "sneer" at him and ask questions why his work was worthy of being funded.

During the tribunal Dr Dunn commented: "Insults, swearing and rudeness are commonplace on Twitter, but what happened involving my colleagues shocked me as I have never seen anyone behave in such a rude and disrespectful way towards a word colleague in view of the public on a social media site."

The university launched an enquiry after he complained to his line manager, which eventually found that Dr Dunn and his colleagues had all breached the institution’s "respect" policies.

He said that by finding him and his colleagues equally at fault, "the inescapable conclusion" is that he had been discriminated against due to his "political philosophical beliefs".

For the next two years the disputes between him and his colleagues about social policy continued, which lead to him being dismissed in August 2017.

During his career he published a book titled Rethinking Unemployment and the Work Ethic where he explains that while benefit claimants generally want jobs, many remain on benefits because they are "too choosy" in the jobs they are willing to do.

He stated that these arguments are unfashionable and are rarely acknowledged by left-leaning social policy academics, which leads to government policies based on a flawed understanding of the issue.