David Miller was cleared of anti-Semitism, leaked document shows

JVL Introduction

Asa Winstanley’s opening paragraphs make clear the argument of his article – that a lawyer, hired by the University of Bristol to investigate allegations of antisemitism against Prof David Miller, exonerated him.

The report states that , “there is no basis for any disciplinary action against Professor Miller.”

Yet he was dismissed on 1st October.

Why? For what? Read Asa Winstanley’s analysis in the Electronic Intifada below.

This article was originally published by the Electronic Intifada on Fri 22 Oct 2021. Read the original here.

David Miller was cleared of anti-Semitism, leaked document shows

A lawyer hired by the UK’s University of Bristol to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism against Professor David Miller concluded that the academic had “no case to answer,” a leaked document shows.

The document, obtained by The Electronic Intifada, shows the investigation concluded that, “there is no basis for any disciplinary action against Professor Miller.”

Despite this, the university fired Miller on 1 October, citing unspecified “standards of behavior.”

Miller has been the target of a long-running and ferocious campaign to have him sacked, run by the Israel lobby and backed by the state of Israel itself.

The university’s statement firing Miller earlier this month stated only that an independent report by a leading lawyer had “found that Professor Miller’s comments did not constitute unlawful speech.”

But the document itself explicitly concludes that Miller is not guilty of anti-Semitism.

It states that “Professor Miller is at pains to distinguish between Zionism and Israel, on the one hand, and Jewish people, on the other.”

The lawyer concluded that “his conduct cannot reasonably be categorized as misconduct.”

The document also shows that the complaint which resulted in Miller’s firing was instigated by two pro-Israel lobby groups and only later adopted by two pro-Israel students on campus.

The two students acted in collusion with the Community Security Trust – which has links to Israel’s deadly spy agency Mossad – and the Union of Jewish Students – which is funded by and acts as a front for the Israeli embassy in London.

You can read extracts from the leaked document on this page.

David Miller has previously told The Electronic Intifada that he will be taking the university to an industrial tribunal for unfair dismissal if they do not reinstate him.

The Support David Miller campaign group said: “It could not be clearer: the University of Bristol has worked hand-in-glove with the UK’s Israel lobby to terrorize one of its own academics.”

The spokesperson accused the university of breaking its own rules to sack Miller even though there was no case to answer.

The group told The Electronic Intifada that the lawyer’s report “blows the lid off the University of Bristol’s corrupt indulgence of the political campaign against Professor Miller. The university now has serious questions to answer over its failure to protect its academics.”

A spokesperson for Bristol university declined to answer when asked why they had fired Miller despite the lawyer’s findings.

They claimed that Miller “is fully aware of the reasons why the decision was made to terminate his employment,” claimed this was “confidential” and said “we do not intend to make any further comment at this time.”

The 47 page document examines the complaints against Miller. These began in March 2019, with the Community Security Trust, or CST.

While the CST portrays itself as the guardian of Britain’s Jewish community, in fact, as The Electronic Intifada has reported for years, it also lobbies for Israel.

As Tony Lerman – who previously worked closely with the CST – told us in 2011, the group receives training from the Mossad, Israel’s brutal global kidnapping and death squad.

In 2012, the CST helped established the Fair Play Campaign Group, which was set up to campaign against boycotts of Israel.

The leaked document shows Bristol university rejected the CST’s initial complaint against Miller on the basis that it was made by an outside group rather than a Bristol student.

The next day, the document says, the university “received a complaint from two individuals one of whom identified themselves as a university student. I refer to those individuals as AA and BB.”

But the document makes clear that neither AA or BB were in any of Miller’s courses and had not even talked to anyone who was.

Click on the image below to sharpen it

Celebratory Tweets posted soon after Miller’s sacking by current and previous Union of Jewish Students presidents Nina Freedman and Hannah Rose suggest it’s likely that they were “AA” and “BB”.

Shortly before publication of this article, Rose set her Twitter account to private, soon after this reporter tweeted a screenshot of her celebratory tweet.

Freedman was a Bristol student at the time of the complaint in 2019, while Rose – sister of former Israeli embassy employee Ella Rose – had studied at the university until 2018.

The Union of Jewish Students is an Israel lobby group whose constitution commits it to “inspiring Jewish students to making an enduring commitment” to Israel. In 2017, an undercover investigation by Al Jazeera revealed that the group is directly funded by the Israeli embassy in London.

The lawyer’s investigation shows that the pro-Israel groups’ claims that Miller’s Jewish students were “terrified” of the professor were baselsss.

The document states that “no complaints have been made against Professor Miller to the university by any of his students.”

The lawyer interviewed AA and found that “the entire focus of AA’s discussion” of their complaint was on a lecture by David Miller “which AA had not attended [and] which AA did not appear to have discussed with any other student who did attend.”

“Entirely without merit”

The leaked document also shows that AA acted in collusion with Israel lobby group the CST, who had made the initial, rejected complaint, as well as Israel lobby group the Union of Jewish Students.

The lawyer recounts that, “AA stated that CST had made a third party complaint about Professor Miller and then AA, being aware of the CST complaint, had decided to make a complaint [too].”

“This was done in conjunction with the national UJS which had helped AA to write the complaint.”

In other words, AA was effectively acting as an on-campus front person for two Israel lobby groups – themselves acting as cut-outs for the state of Israel.

“This complaint was not brought in relation to matters which had affected AA in his/her capacity as a student,” the lawyer concludes, explaining that all except one of the talks and articles by David Miller that AA was complaining about had occurred before AA was even a student at Bristol.

One of these articles was a long 2013 piece co-written by Miller and three others for the website OpenDemocracy.

The lawyer concluded that in their view, the statements in the article “do not appear to me to be properly characterized as tropes or conspiracy theories but are, instead, specific and apparently defensible assertions of fact.”

The only part of the complaint which had to do with anything Miller had taught in class was an optional essay question he had set: “Critically discuss the idea that lobbying might be considered a form of corporate harm.”

Although the question didn’t even mention Israel or Zionism – let alone Jewish people – AA claimed that the question could lead to a discussion of “anti-Semitic tropes.”

The lawyer concluded that this aspect of AA’s complaint was “entirely without merit.”

Indeed, the lawyer, who was hired by the University of Bristol to look into the case against Miller, concluded that there is, in fact, “no basis for any disciplinary action … in connection with any of these matters.”


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Comments (8)

  • Naomi Wayne says:

    Is the full legal report available – I prefer to do my own analysis of a document like that.

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  • Chris Friel says:

    Thanks so much for that! I have added a sentence to the timeline I have written here: https://www.academia.edu/59116435/The_Professor_David_Miller_Timeline

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  • Simon Dewsbury says:

    I note the reference to CST ‘urgently consulting lawyers’. I wonder whether this has had any effect on the University’s decision?
    But the timing is astonishing. The CST is told that it has no standing and within a day has produced a student (with no apparent previous involvement) to make a complaint!

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  • Nick Elvidge says:

    looks like bristol uni gonna be eating humble pie at Tribunal (please please let it go to tribunal or a complete climb down from bristol) BUT also unwelcome publicity for israeli shadow ops lol

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  • Anthony Baldwin says:

    When the Rose sisters are involved in anything it is obvious that the defence of the indefensible is involved too and the full weight of the Zionist organisations throughout society will be brought to bear.
    Cn anyone explain why Caroline Lucas actually became involved with the likes of the Rose family?

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  • Teresa Grover says:

    I find this all very shameful, & Frightening, that the University preferred to believe certain students who did not attend Dr.Millers lecture without checking all the facts first, its as though he was found guilty & the students innocent!
    Surely this type of Israeli lobbying is becoming far too common & is creeping into everything now. Even Jewish people are being targeted by Israels aggressive spying on ordinary people & causing great distress to them. The antisemitism is coming from Zionist Israel & from people in Britain supporting Israel.
    Frankly it ALL STINKS, weaponising the word “antisemitism ” to do character assasinations on innocent people is exactly what happened in Germany in the 1930s, this has to stop & people here should stop falling for MOSSADS TENTACLES OF HATE & SUSPICION!
    Its all happening too often & to very decent people…

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  • Jacob Ecclestone says:

    I agree with Naomi Wayne’s comment. If the full legal report is available it should be published – particularly as the statement issued by Bristol University was written by weasels.

    At the beginning of March this year, more than 100 MPs and peers signed a letter to the Vice-Chancellor of Bristol University, Dr. Hugh Brady, flatly stating that Professor Miller “has been inciting hatred against Jewish students.”

    The signatories declared that “we wish you to know that we stand against hatred. We want the young Jewish people at your institution and across the country to know that we do not accept this behaviour. “

    To be charitable, most of those who signed the letter are political has-beens or chumps, but I was disappointed and saddened to see that Caroline Lucas had added her name.

    We now know that the two young Jewish women who laid the complaints against Miller were not even his students and were being used to front a carefully laid plan drawn up by others.

    In the light of the seemingly unequivocal findings of the Queen’s Counsel who was instructed to examine the allegations against Professor Miller – that ” there is no case to answer …. in connexion with any of the matters I have investigated”, perhaps Ms Lucas would have the grace and humility to apologise for having so foolishly joined this vile attack on freedom of speech?

    Sadly, I do not believe it is even worth asking the Labour MPs if they would be willing to do the same.

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  • Chris Friel says:

    And I also have this “long read” on the Miller case – in response to David Hirsh.
    https://www.academia.edu/59789418/The_Demeaning_of_Miller

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Comments are now closed.