We have described in an earlier blog posting the sad yet inspiring case of Magdalen Connolly The matter was extensively discussed in the Times Higher Educational Supplement by Wyn Evans and in the Daily Telegraph by Poppy Wood last year.
Briefly, Magdalen Connolly introduced ground-breaking concepts related to a Judaeo-Arabic text, yet one of her mentors took credit for them without proper recognition. The most troubling aspect of this situation is that the infringement was committed by a mentor, someone whose role is to guide and support students. When an advisor steals a student’s ideas, it directly contradicts the core mission of universities to foster and nurture future scholars. Sadly, such incidents are not rare.
In 2020, Dr. Connolly lodged an official complaint with Cambridge University, expecting a prompt resolution that would satisfy both sides. However, she soon faced one of the more distressing aspects of that institution — the excessive delays in handling and concluding staff complaints by its Human Resources department. The investigation dragged on for four years.
In the meantime, Magdalen Connolly took Cambridge University to an Employment Tribunal. As plagiarism is not illegal, she sued under age discrimination legislation, alleging that younger researchers are particularly affected by the theft of ideas by senior academics. Distressingly, she lost. By then, she had health difficulties exacerbated by stress. She left academia for a less baneful environment. (The case was generously taken on a no win-no fee basis by her lawyer).
Very recently, the Daily Mail has covered the case as well, with a different slant. The Mail’s title is “Top Cambridge University academic is guilty of plagiarising work from her PhD student“
In the article, her case is presented as a win. We are very glad that the newspaper chose that approach, because Magdalen’s courage and determination did indeed expose both the common plagiarism at Cambridge University and the name of her plagiariser — given in court as Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner, now Director of the Woolf Institute and Fellow of St Edmunds College.
A senior manager at Cambridge University was seen smirking about the Employment Tribunal win.
We are not so sure. The destruction of a young researcher is nothing much to brag about. The Employment Tribunal laid bare the lack of care shown by the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies as well as the slowness and casual indifference of the Human Resources department. It’s not that great for a University to be admitting in a public arena that one of its senior researchers stole from a student. You can win an Employment Tribunal yet still earn widespread revulsion.
Small wonder Cambridge University is tumbling down the rankings.
The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame won.
64 Comments
21percent.org · 6 February 2025 at 06:13
Update on the Magdalen Connolly case. We were with her at the Tribunal last year and she was broken by the verdict.
It’s important for her to know that there are many people in her corner, who admire what she did.
when the day is long · 8 February 2025 at 20:06
magdalen we have never met but there are more people out there who admire you than you will ever know. you had the courage to stand up and fight for what is right and you never gave up. you paved the way for all the rest of us to come forward with our experience and stories and be heard. you did not suffer alone because we have all suffered alone and therefore in fact have suffered together. how many people before you remained silent only to let one more person experience the same torment. you did not. each of us has a test to face in life and you passed yours. by your example you have saved countless future young scholars from the indignity of having to suffer the same torture as you experienced at the hands of this university.
Eileen Nugent · 9 February 2025 at 23:25
I support Magdalen Connolly standing up for herself. There is no excuse for organisational mental abuse.
Erika · 10 February 2025 at 12:23
Only saw this new post today (Monday) otherwise would have written sooner.
I support you Magdalen. Your courage is an inspiration for us all.
Meg · 10 February 2025 at 14:16
Magdalen was very brave. She made a principled stand. I stand with her
Ideas are commonly harvested from young researchers by mediocre Cambridge Professors.
Engineer · 12 February 2025 at 16:39
I support Magdalen Connolly. No one deserves to experience what she did. She did the right thing and should be admired for it.
Juvenal · 12 February 2025 at 18:45
I support Magdalen Connolly
The university presented an ugly spectacle of wickedness at the Employment Tribunal.
Norbert · 12 February 2025 at 23:21
I would like also to express my strong support for Magdalen Connolly here. Sadly, the mobbing and abuse of early career researchers is a daily occurrence in academic life. Therefore we must support each and every person, who makes such abuse visible and accountable. I congratulate her courage and determination. She is a bold and brave example for other individuals to follow.
Anon · 13 February 2025 at 17:08
I support Magdalen Connolly.
James · 19 February 2025 at 20:25
I support Magdalen Connolly
SU · 20 February 2025 at 13:28
I support Magdalen Connolly. Cambridge must do more to establish itself as a safe environment for undergrads and postdocs to express their ideas, without fear of misuse or appropriation.
Jessica · 13 February 2025 at 18:53
I’m with you Magdalen! I wish all women had your strength and determination.
Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum!
Elias · 14 February 2025 at 12:20
I also support Magdalen.
Anonymous · 15 February 2025 at 15:14
I support Magdalen Connolly too.
TJD · 17 February 2025 at 10:35
I support Magdalen Connolly
Sensei · 18 February 2025 at 20:41
I support Magdalen Connolly.
DestroyingAngel · 18 February 2025 at 21:14
I support Magdalen Connolly
Raven · 18 February 2025 at 21:54
I support Magdalen Connolly
GossipMonger · 21 February 2025 at 23:58
I stand with Magdalen Connolly
What HR/Legal did — with the connivance of senior management — was beyond wicked
Hazmat · 6 February 2025 at 08:11
The comments on the Daily Mail article are a fun read. They make the comments on your blog sound like a Cambridge alumni love-in session by comparison.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14342087/Top-Cambridge-University-academic-guilty-plagiarism-tribunal-hears.html#comments-14342087
21percent.org · 6 February 2025 at 08:20
The comments section of the Daily Mail is often unhinged.
But, on this article, the DM comments get straight to the key point
“They set up a committee to investigate the complaint? And it took four years…..? Dear God, murder investigations don`t take that long. It is often the case that a committee will be formed in order the “kick the issue into the long grass“, and it certainly seems to have worked here...
There was no need for the Tribunal if matters had been dealt with swiftly & fairly by the University.
The outcome has been damaging for everyone involved — Dr Connolly, Dr Wagner and the University. This could have been resolved earlier to everyone’s advantage.
ProfPlum · 6 February 2025 at 16:08
The Nuremberg Trials lasted from November 1945 to October 1946, just under a year
A typical Cambridge University Grievance procedure lasts four times as long
another victim · 24 February 2025 at 04:47
Our investigation was a true endurance test, spanning an impressive four years—first through an informal University investigation, then escalating to a barrister-led inquiry that, despite its thoroughness, inconveniently found nothing illegal. Naturally, this meant it was time to… send it right back to yet another informal University investigation on the exact same allegations.
In criminal court, this would be called double jeopardy—a fundamental legal safeguard against repeated prosecutions for the same offense. But at our University? It’s just standard procedure. A procedure seemingly less about truth or justice and more about ensuring we were found guilty by any means necessary. Who needs due process when you can just keep rerunning the investigation until you get the desired outcome?
Tribune · 24 February 2025 at 21:46
It is an outrage. Your story needs to be told in full, if not for your sake, then, to prevent the same thing happening to others in future.
So let the world know the facts. Don’t let yourself wait another 5 or 10 years only to read about the same abuse happening to others.
Anonymous, Eh · 6 February 2025 at 19:27
I realize I may be about to get drowned in a sea of attacks (fine) and maybe this is not the best forum to make this point, but one thing that does surprise me here is how only the university not subjected Magdalen Connolly to abuse by dragging out her complaint (to say the least), but then, after expending all this effort to “protect” Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner from accountability, still thought it best to throw her to the wolves by letting it go public and having her face splashed (full page) in a “name and shame” article before the country.
So they not only managed to destroy an emerging young scholar with a complaint, but also, ruin the reputation of the person they were “trying” to protect!
I think the people running this show must be secretly enjoying the chaos, pain and humiliation they inflict on others. What other possible explanation could there be?
21percent.org · 6 February 2025 at 19:39
As it happens, we largely agree. What occurred was the worst outcome for everyone concerned.
Whenever a case gets to Employment Tribunal, that is a failure of Human Resources. Far too many cases are ending up in the ETs.
As pointed out Magdalen Connolly was fighting on a ‘no win-no fee’ basis. However, the University was spending public money fighting the case. It’s a disgraceful waste of money that should be going to research & teaching.
Human Resources should be solving these cases quickly and not allowing them to escalate. 4 years is a completely absurd timescale.
Eileen Nugent · 9 February 2025 at 23:59
I agree that grievances should be handled with greater care than was shown in this case to minimise the risk to all individuals in the organisation and to the organisation as a separate legal entity against which legal action can be taken. What possible explanation could there be? If you are looking for a rational explanation, it’s that the organisation is irrational at the level of the organisation which is why there is no rational explanation for the output of its organisational processes. This is why a remedy process takes four years to deliver no remedy for any individual, why individuals in the organisation are at a significant risk of being exposed to virtually unconstrained amounts of work-related stress and why the risk of a preventable work-related death is also significant.
Impossible Pain · 10 February 2025 at 12:02
At best it is negligence, pure and simple. They are supposed to have a duty of care. They do not uphold it. Not just to you, but to me, to Magdalen, and to all the others who have come forward so far. Who knows how many more are still yet to speak out. Again and again and again and again, it is the same stories of pleas for help from staff in acute crisis, ignored medical advice, malicious and false allegations, endless delays, career obstruction, and callous indifference.
And those are only the best case scenarios. In the worst cases, there is clear written evidence of intentional, institutionalised bullying in which HR and Legal services deliberately coordinated the psychological undermining, victimisation and harassment of staff.
Eileen Nugent · 10 February 2025 at 14:06
The organisational has a legal duty of care to every individual in the organisation. A legal duty is not an optional duty, certainly not a health and safety one. It is going to become increasingly difficult to subject individuals to this type of organisational mental abuse going forward.
Eileen Nugent · 11 February 2025 at 14:29
I have raised concerns with multiple national regulators. The university can try doubling down on the same approach of generating workload for employment tribunals, national regulators, the courts, occupational health professionals, the national health system, the Samaritans. Eventually all these external organisations are going to be fed up with the university dumping all of its internal problems on individuals external to the university. The university has enough resources to fix its own problems and to stop dumping them on the rest of society.
Eileen Nugent · 11 February 2025 at 14:41
Non payment of wages to fund legal professionals to further mentally abuse an individual whose wages have not been paid. An organisation shoving public resources up the organisational blackhole that connects straight to the national debt.
Anon · 14 February 2025 at 20:55
“A legal duty is not an optional duty, certainly not a health and safety one. It is going to become increasingly difficult to subject individuals to this type of organisational mental abuse going forward.”
Well said. That’s the hope.
UbuRoi · 7 February 2025 at 06:53
It’s hard to improve on Adeimantus’ diagnosis on previous thread.
“It is a grotesque spectacle to see the brightest intellects of the country being treated as disposable garbage by a bunch of half-baked dimwits who themselves barely passed sixth form college and have never ceased to despise and resent those who worked hard and studied harder.”
The university is run by vindictive and stupid people (“half baked dimwits”) who command a lot of power and money.
They were outraged that Magdalen refused to accept their version of justice and went to a Tribunal. They were only interested in breaking her.
Of course, they broke her.
And broke Dr Wagner and did huge damage to the university in the process.
Anonymous · 7 February 2025 at 12:46
This case is deeply saddening, and the victim should be supported in every way possible. This really does not look good at all for the organisation responsible, especially the named academic.
Magdalen’s courage will not be in vein, and I am deeply inspired by it.
On the comments provided above, I agree with all of them.
No innocent victim should ever be dragged through such abuse for years, and be forced to raise the matter at an Employment Tribunal. If I was forced to go that far by an employer, then I would not sign an NDA either.
But it cannot be stressed enough, UbuRoi is correct. In such cases, the deliberate aim is to
thoroughly break the victim by any means possible, to push the matter all the way to the ET, in order to extend their punishment as long as possible, all just for the sake of it. Sometimes it stops there, sometimes not. But it is never for the benefit of the victim. This case is even more harrowing as the victim is an early career researcher.
This behaviour is dark, it is sadistic, it is depraved, and it is real.
Until now it has been easy for employers to pick off many cases one by one, but if enough people
come forward with similar accounts, then their ability to get away with it, and get away with attempting to Gaslight victims into believing they are at fault, rapidly diminishes.
ProfFlowers · 7 February 2025 at 13:01
There is another victim in this case. The university appoints what they call a “Responsible Person” who acts as an intermediary between Human Resources and the individual raising the Grievance. This seems to be simply to prevent HR getting the blame. Someone else is the public face of the handling of the Grievance, though in fact our faceless HR actually decides everything.
In the Connolly case, the Responsible Person was an academic and a member of the University Library. Although most likely blameless, she has ended up being tarred by the indefensible delays in this case. She was named in the court case as a respondent.
I acted as a Responsible Person once, but I became increasing concerned as to the handling of the case by Human Resources. I ended up resigning. I strongly urge all Cambridge academics to think very carefully before acting as Responsible Persons in any grievance. I would never do it again.
If we all refuse, this unhappy system will collapse.
Anon · 7 February 2025 at 19:40
“I strongly urge all Cambridge academics to think very carefully before acting as Responsible Persons in any grievance.”
I fully agree with ProfFlowers. This caution should be extended to senior managers, whom the University also employs as Responsible Persons.
The more people refuse to act as HR stooges, refuse to sign and send in their own names malevolent messages drafted by HR, ridiculous investigation reports, humiliating outcome letters, full of tortuously phrased untruths – the less “untouchable” these invisible cowardly manipulators will become.
Eileen Nugent · 9 February 2025 at 23:11
Any serious grievance (e.g. potential loss of a career) should have a situational work-related stress risk assessment in place before the formal grievance process begins. That work-related stress risk assessment should be actively updated and remain in place for the entire duration of the formal grievance process. The work-related stress risk assessment should be available to the responsible person at the point they are asked to act in this capacity so that they fully aware of the situation they are entering into and the potential risks. Any seriously mishandling of a case is likely to show up as a significant increase in work-related stress and degradation of health. That would need to be escalated up the organisation with some speed to improve the accuracy of organisational case handling. In the rare cases where the continued organisational mishandling of the case could have particularly serious consequences for an individual the case may need to go to the health and safety executive. In the event of a death the responsible person could be called as a witness by the coroner.
Eileen Nugent · 9 February 2025 at 23:14
No more four year formal grievance processes. Gone. A thing of the Past.
TigerWhoCametoET · 10 February 2025 at 09:26
Anyone presiding over a multi year process to investigate a complaint should themselves be subject to investigation to answer why.
Soluble Dolphin · 10 February 2025 at 11:51
I was bullied at Cambridge and occupational health wrote to my department to insist upon a “stress risk assessment”. The head of department and department administrator simply ignored it. They never replied to the doctor, never met with me, and obviously never did any “assessment”. They continued the bullying, resulting in a dramatic downturn and near death spiral.
After that they continued to ignore occupational health because doing so would have meant putting on paper the outcome of their actions. HR have the documentation but still will not investigate. Our lives mean nothing to them. They care about protecting themselves from being exposed or held accountable. They will risk anyone and anything to achieve that.
Carol · 10 February 2025 at 13:27
That is awful. Has anyone used Cambridge Occupational Health recently, and is it true as reported that they were ordered to include disclaimer statements that medical advisory is not binding?
Meg · 10 February 2025 at 14:04
I can confirm that my Head of Department just ignored my recent Occupational Health Report.
Kόραξ · 10 February 2025 at 17:10
I must sadly report that a very recent OH report contains such a disclaimer, stressing that the report contains recommendations which are not prescriptive. It is quite a strong generic statement, and in this case, a departure from a previous OH report, on the same matter, only 7 months earlier.
I would be surprised if this was the practitioner’s choice.
We are not safe in this organisation. The lives, livelihood, health and safety of other human beings mean nothing to those who run it, and their empty rhetoric.
Nor do talent, hard work, academic success, values and principles.
Hippocrates · 10 February 2025 at 17:32
Same with my last letter. It had a new, bold statement at the start that OH medical “recommendations” are “not prescriptive” and that, in effect, your line manager may disregard them entirety at their discretion, regardless of any consequences.
Both the professional ethics and legal validity of this statement are questionable. While it is true that medical advice is not strictly prescriptive, that does depend upon how any reasonable person would interpret it in context (e.g. in relation to prevailing legal standards). It is certainly not the sole remit of the line manager to determine that. So in this sense, the statement is offering misleading and potentially harmful advice, both for the line manager and the organisation?
Flabbergasted · 11 February 2025 at 06:06
So this is actually a real thing? The university OH has introduced a policy of instructing managers they are free to neglect medical warnings and advice? And this has led to identifiable incidents in which damages resulted from doing so?
21percent.org · 11 February 2025 at 11:56
The 21Group has now been given recent examples of Cambridge University Occupational Health Reports that have the disclaimer
This report contains recommendations provided by the Occupational Health Service to support and guide discussions between the line-manager and member of staff when considering reasonable adjustments to their working arrangements. They are not prescriptive and will need to be considered and discussed in relation to the requirements of the role and the operational needs of the department, to enable a management decision to be made on final working arrangements.
goquakers · 11 February 2025 at 06:36
Am I the only person who notices the irony of a Cambridge Dean whose research was specialized on social norms and abuse: and yet presides over a university culture in which this type of behavior is normalized?
21percent.org · 11 February 2025 at 06:45
The 21 group has noticed this contradiction too
Our prediction is that this is not going to end well
Anon · 11 February 2025 at 12:28
Thanks for obtaining this text. Can we confirm on several issues here.
1. Is it correct that this text is added to all letters? Are there multiple incidents?
2. If so, when did this start and whose decision was it?
3. Under whose authority is the text stated in letters (e.g. the doctor, the university)?
4. Does it always refer to the “department” as the final decisionmaker?
5. If so, why, as legally it would surely be the employer and not the line manager to hold liability over what counts as reasonable adjustment?
Superficially it does seem that the objective is to repurpose doctors for the goal of engineering constructive dismissal of staff. That is clear from the way it is worded – i.e. terminating in a “final” “management decision”. It is hard to see how this would not encourage disability discrimination.
TigerWhoCametoET · 11 February 2025 at 12:47
If doctors write letters for patients under their care, who later experience discrimination as a result of how a recipient interprets that statement, then it seems to me like a horrible breach of professional ethics and a major violation of trust.
TigerWhoCametoET · 11 February 2025 at 12:53
To clarify, the trust issue is very important. If patients cannot trust their doctor because they know that information they share might be used to construct a dismissal instead of making adjustments, then patients could end up hiding from their doctor serious illnesses or disabilities that are worsened by their working arrangements out of fear of losing their livelihood entirely. This is quite wrong.
Eileen Nugent · 11 February 2025 at 14:12
Any large organisation has a legal obligation to have an organisational work-related stress risk assessment in place. Why not ask to see that risk assessment to check it exists and is in place? Also, if an individual is asking for an individual work-related stress risk assessment to be done, what reasonable grounds does the organisation have for refusing to carry out one in accordance with to the standards now set out by the health and safety executive? If an organisation does not perform a health and safety check when requested to do so it cannot then evidence any organisational management of work-related stress never mind argue a case that it was not the source of a major unnecessary and unmanaged stressor that had the potential to generate significant health problems for an individual.
Eileen Nugent · 10 February 2025 at 14:38
It is not what your life means to them that is important, it is what your life means to you that is important. If occupational health is recommending a stress risk assessment, HR can’t avoid doing one, it’s a legal obligation. Ask HR for one, make sure they know you are prepared to escalate that right up the organisation and out the national regulator if need be. There is no excuse for mental abuse.
Young Lives Matter · 10 February 2025 at 15:32
I agree completely, and thankyou for your supportive words. But of course, the problem that many of us struggle with is that, when you are subjected to practices of institutionalised bullying via words and actions that treat your life, hopes and dreams as if they were worthless, then becomes harder and harder to avoid internalising that message. Little by little, you lose confidence in yourself, lose any sense of hope or feeling of agency. That is what mental abuse does and the damages are entirely the responsibility of the actors in management who perpetrate this abuse.
Eileen Nugent · 10 February 2025 at 17:08
In these situations it is important to recognise that maintaining health and future ability to work is a higher priority that maintaining a particular role within a particular organisation. What you life, your hopes and your dreams are worth to you is far more important than what they are worth to a particular organisation – if you internalise a message your life, your hopes and your dreams are worth nothing – that reduces the probability of getting any organisation to recognise their true value – current and future organisations – because you have internalised them being worth nothing. I am not saying that this is not a struggle but it is a two-step process. Resist internalising a message that your life is worthless – this is something that every individual can do for themselves. Demand a stress risk assessment until the organisation puts one in place – it is a legal obligation. Resist the attempts of the organisation to place no value on your life until they correct that organisational fault.
[..] · 10 February 2025 at 18:31
“What you life, your hopes and your dreams are worth to you is far more important than what they are worth to a particular organisation”. Yes. But as you say, it is chicken and egg because when you are thriving, supported and successful, you feel your life means a lot, but after you have been deliberately professionally destroyed, you don’t feel any worth in carrying on. Somehow you have to find the first step to recovery. But that is just impossible when you are inside an university that keeps hitting you again and again and again and again with the same message that you are completely worthless, your dreams are shit, your achievements here don’t exist, you are not even worth replying to, and the university would rather you ceased to exist entirely.
Eileen Nugent · 10 February 2025 at 21:35
It is important to maintain perspective in these extremely difficult situations. Irrespective of what is happening in your professional life, your life does mean a lot. That allows you to maintain your health, your ability to care for yourself and for others and your ability to work and to achieve what it is you would like to achieve in life. To get the best out of individuals an organisation has to place value on the lives of individuals within the organisation otherwise individuals will naturally refrain from giving their maximum effort in times of greater organisational need when it becomes clear that there is no organisational reciprocity in times of greater individual need i.e. the organisation would never give its maximum effort in return. To get the best out of yourself you have to place value on your own life.
Angel with Red Eyes · 7 February 2025 at 13:02
“A senior manager at Cambridge University was seen smirking”
Disgusting and foul and evil. Evil is pleasure in the suffering of others
If someone is prepared to identify this individual they could be in the Daily Mail next
John Frost · 9 February 2025 at 10:43
They will have to join the queue…. and the queue is getting long
John Wycliffe · 9 February 2025 at 19:36
I suspect they are in the queue already
Emeritus · 9 February 2025 at 07:23
Our HR department has been a disaster for as long as I can remember. The present incarnation is worst of all. I feel ashamed for the university.
21percent.org · 10 February 2025 at 22:03
The next REF (2029) will contain questions on research culture.
Previously, research outputs were weighted 60% four times as much as research environment at 15%. In the new system, research outputs are weighted 50% only twice as much as research environment at 25%. It’s a big, big change.
Proposed questions are
Do you give people proper jobs or put them on fixed term contracts? Do you pay them properly? Do you assess their performance fairly and transparently?
Do you have a harassment policy? Do you have a whistleblowing policy? How do you deal with bullying and bad behaviour?
Cambridge University will find these questions really hard to answer, especially for the departments with a poor reputation for bullying, like astronomy, architecture, engineering, FAMES, history, POLIS and CRUK.
The answers to questions on whistleblowing will be very interesting, given the astonishing events in astronomy.
The 21 Group will be ensuring that the answers provided by the university in its REF submission are accurate.
HRsurvivor · 10 February 2025 at 22:22
Was never sure what to make of this whole 21 Group thing, but you just named the key offenders without dropping a beat.
The World of Bullshitmore - 21percent.org · 20 February 2025 at 06:42
[…] Cambridge’s Research Strategy Office swung into action. The matter was reviewed by Dr Rhys Morgan, Head of Research Policy, Governance and Integrity and member of the Centre for Science and Policy. The full text of the letter, labelled ‘Strictly Private and Confidential’, is available on the For Better Science website. (Dr Morgan was also involved in lengthy and abusive handling of Magdalen Connolly’s plagiarism complaint, blogged on earlier here and here). […]