A LIVERPOOL professor who lost her job claims she was silenced by her university employer and was a victim of discrimination.
Linda Archibald, former direc-tor of Liverpool John Moores University’s language school, made the claims on day three of an employment tribunal.
The 50-year-old academic says she was subject to sexual dis-crimination and given compul-sory redundancy in 2006. It all followed her whistle-blowing on the faculty’s poor financial management and a growing “culture of secrecy”. Following a grievance meeting, Prof Archibald claims the minutes of the meeting were doctored to create a bias towards the dean of her faculty, James Kirkbride.
She said a written statement of her grievances which she handed in and read out loud at the meet-ing were “doctored” to omit her positive views of university life.
Though the university allowed her to amend the notes before the next stage of the grievance proce-dure, Prof Archibald claimed: “I was a victim of discrimination and I’ve been silenced.”
She claims the minutes were an act of discrimination against her because during her time at the university she had previously felt happy about her status as a person and a woman.
In cross-examination, Mr Gil-roy, counsel for the university, said: “Despite the fact all the allegations on the grievance have been put down in a 25 page com-plaint, the allegations are of un-fair discrimination and nothing to do with sex discrimination.”
Later, he moved away from the grievances claims and questioned her over her allegations that the faculty had “ridden rough-shod” and “broke all the rules”.
