Nothing surprises us about university HR departments any more.
Last week, The Times and Personnel Today reported an extraordinary story. A famous UK university, which is currently implicated in a case involving allegations that a senior professor sexually harassed a female colleague, has been granted complete anonymity by an Employment Tribunal judge.
The university requested the confidentiality order, citing concerns about safeguarding its reputation and that of its staff. The judge approved the request, but did not provide any legal justification for the decision.
We do not know which university this is. There are some obvious clues in the story, so the gagging order was likely a complete waste of money.
First, the university is very wealthy with an international “reputation” that it needs to protect. Of course by “international reputation“, what is really meant here is “donors“. This suggests that the University is likely at the very top of the Russell Group and probably a member of the Golden Triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge (one of these universities is particularly famous for sex pests).
Secondly, this is very unusual. The Professor at the centre of these allegations is no ordinary Professor. After all, Oxford University despatched Prof Soumitra Dutta, the Dean of the Saïd Business School, for sexual harassment only a few weeks ago, whilst the names of other professorial sex abusers at the London School of Economics, University College, London, Cambridge University and Oxford University have been widely reported in the press.
A university would not go to such trouble and expense to gag the name of any old bog-standard Professor.
We surmise that (i) the individual is at or close to the most senior levels in the University — perhaps a close colleague of the Vice Chancellor, or a pro Vice Chancellor, or the Master of an Oxbridge College; or (ii) the individual is an academic with a very high media profile whose name would be instantly recognisable to the public as the face of the institution.
The judgment has alarmed those campaigning for open justice. It is one thing for dodgy financiers or oligarchs or Andrew Windsor to use gagging orders. We expect no better of them. It is quite another thing for a prestigious and distinguished university to use public funds to do this:
“There are no circumstances in which an institution such as a university should be granted anonymity in this way. To do so represents a gross breach of the principles of open justice. Public confidence in the judicial system depends on transparency. This drift towards secrecy must be resisted and reversed.” [Sayra Tekin, legal director of the News Media Association]
The hypocrisy becomes even clearer when we see this is clearly at variance with the Athena SWAN principles. For example, Oxford and Cambridge Universities openly brag of their silver Athena SWAN awards. The awards are completely meaningless if it can be shown that such institutions are gagging the victims of sexual harassment.
The female victim of the harassment is appealing the judgment.
This is an appeal we must win.
The illustration is Professor Rath (Emil Jannings) looking lecherously at Lola (Marlene Dietrich) in The Blue Angel.
51 Comments
21percent.org · 21 October 2025 at 09:44
If the victim is reading this blog, we encourage her to make a crowd justice appeal for money
https://www.crowdjustice.com
There is a clear public interest in appealing this truly disgraceful verdict.
TheResearcher · 21 October 2025 at 10:09
“The university requested the confidentiality order, citing concerns about safeguarding its reputation and that of its staff.”
This is so shameful. No wonder people are afraid of reporting abuse if even a case like this in a university is silenced by law. Did they actually use the word “safeguarding”? Universities like UCam that ignore safeguarding referrals from their staff and students that build on extensive medical evidence should not even use that word.
I hope this and related decisions can be reversed urgently.
LegalEagle · 21 October 2025 at 14:05
The case recalls a similar legal dispute from 2019, when a Employment Tribunal issued secrecy orders shielding the identity of a prominent public figure accused of sexually assaulting two female staff members. The affluent public figure resolved the allegations privately, agreeing to pay the women substantial sums on condition that they sign non-disclosure agreements barring them from publicly discussing what had happened. We still do not know who this person was, he is referred to as Mr X in all documents.
Guess this is what will happen here — we will never find out the true identity of Professor Gropewell of Lustbridge University. He is obviously too important for his name to get out.
SM · 21 October 2025 at 14:13
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/wealthy-businessman-mr-x-who-paid-off-sex-accusers-wins-secrecy-order-l269xdh9m
21percent.org · 21 October 2025 at 14:18
This is a shocking article.
One of the women had claimed that she was attacked and orally raped in Mr X’s private office. She described in a witness statement how she was “paralysed with fear, terrified, disorientated and used like a rag doll, totally incapacitated and unable to escape”. Another woman described how she was groped by Mr X at his country residence. She said: “I felt numb, I kept thinking that this job was my independence that I had worked so hard for.”
….
The Times has fought a legal battle for more than a year for the right to report the case but a senior judge ruled last month that in this case the protection of the millionaire’s “honour and reputation” took precedence over the principle of open justice under which reporters are deemed to be “the eyes and ears of the public” in the courts. Mr Justice Soole, sitting at the employment appeal tribunal, acknowledged that the case involved “allegations of sexual offences” against “a public figure with a well-known family name” which are “entirely denied”.
TheResearcher · 21 October 2025 at 14:14
If I understood correctly, in that case the victims accepted to sign an NDA. I did not understand that the victim in this new post accepted to sign an NDA, and I really hope she does not. Luckily, the University of Cambridge tells us that they do not use NDAs, “The University does not use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or confidentiality clauses. We are committed to ensuring staff and students are not prevented from discussing their experiences of harassment or sexual misconduct.” See “Freedom of Speech” here,
https://www.studentsupport.cam.ac.uk/harassment-and-sexual-misconduct
SnapDragon · 21 October 2025 at 14:22
That is a total fucking lie. They threatened to sue me unless I signed an NDA and that was recent. This was about serious abuse by School and senior HR. They are fucking liars.
TheResearcher · 21 October 2025 at 14:50
What a surprise, UCam makes false statements!??!?! I can assure you that they will not try that with me. I am actually looking forward if they do because I will be able to share it here.
Bloody right · 21 October 2025 at 17:16
Bloody well said, bloody right!
Anonymous · 21 October 2025 at 19:52
On what grounds did they threaten to sue you unless you signed an NDA (assuming
it’s safe to say)?
Eileen Nugent · 7 November 2025 at 10:38
The problem that universities will have is this : A university could drive an individual out of a highly specialised field in a way which excludes the individual from future employment in their profession. This could also place the individual in a state of deep ill health. The university could then follow up by suing an individual to enforce an NDA and in doing so extract all their financial resources at a point in time they are at their most vulnerable something which could easily produce a relationship breakdown and first entry into a state of dependency on the state, dependency that could then last a lifetime. The state is then picking up the tab for the serious abuse by School and senior HR.
This is why I am surprised that national regulators are not more proactive when people in these difficult positions do raise concerns with them. The organisational behaviour of organisations the nation trusts national regulators to effectively regulate in the public interest is in some cases very visibly actively draining the pot of state resources available to the state out of which the funds for their own regulatory activity are drawn.
I wasn’t asked to sign an NDA. I guess it’s possible the University of Cambridge could sue me but I am hoping that if that happened the state would start objecting to its increased state service workload, its increased costs of state support, its reduced tax revenue & its reduced worker productivity and that sanity would eventually prevail. If a university starts making threats on future legal action, it’s important to consider whether what the university is threatening to do is in the public interest as that is a factor in the probability of follow through on the threat.
21percent.org · 21 October 2025 at 17:21
A big difference is Mr X used his own money for the gagging order, whilst Professor Gropewell is using public money.
Universities should not be using tuition fee/donor money for such completely improper purposes. It is a serious abuse of power, and unlikely to receive approval of either politicians or the public.
It’s worth noting that Cambridge has supported the legal costs of serious wrongdoers before. A good example is events at the Institute of Astronomy in 2021. The University supported a Professor — later identified by the Commissary as the principal wrongdoer in events — in his legal costs.
TigerWhoCametoET · 21 October 2025 at 17:27
Was the case against the university or the professor individually? If the latter it would surely be corruption?
21percent.org · 21 October 2025 at 17:36
From the wording of the Report in the Times, the case is against both.
The fault lies both with the alleged perpetrator Prof Gropewell and the University of Lustbridge that failed to safeguard the victim.
Agreed — this is corruption. Public money diverted to private ends.
TheResearcher · 21 October 2025 at 17:34
“later identified by the Commissary as the principal wrongdoer in events”
You were lucky that the Commissary replied to you! I am still waiting for a reply from him since 3 July! I trust that Mr Elias will reply to me eventually, hopefully before I am suspended or expelled.
21percent.org · 21 October 2025 at 17:38
The University ignored the Commissary as well.
TheResearcher · 21 October 2025 at 17:45
What a place…
Wary Canary · 21 October 2025 at 21:33
Professor Gropewell’s identity will eventually be known —the truth can’t be silenced.
Oxon · 21 October 2025 at 14:06
Oh yes. Unrelatedly I would be happy to give you a list of historic sex perpetrators at Oxford. One passed last year… yet had a widely known predilection for the boys fresh from freshers’ week.
21percent.org · 21 October 2025 at 14:16
Please do send in confidence to contact@21percent.org
NaN · 23 October 2025 at 14:58
There’s a man of the cloth at one of the colleges who is often caught without the cloth
IMAGINARY · 21 October 2025 at 19:57
To Prof Gropewell you can add:
Prof Drinkalot who together with Prof Teflon are serial bullies at large in the School of Disease. Prof Smallman is the Head of School and provides support for these rogues.
MUSKETEER · 22 October 2025 at 11:08
Prof Gropewell
Prof Drinkalot
Prof Teflon
Prof Bullshitmore
Prof Smallman
What a cast of characters! All under the realm of the American Queen!
TheResearcher · 22 October 2025 at 13:48
There are so many more… One can do a full show on Netflix with characters from UCam.
Not sure if people noted that Nurse Emily has been pretty active again, as she had been when the recent big case of plagiarism was about to be published and then got gagged. It smells that something (not good) is happening in the background…
21percent.org · 22 October 2025 at 14:54
It smells that something (not good) is happening in the background
Possibly because there’s an ongoing Employment Tribunal at Cambridge.
Cambridge
Cambridge
DDA == Suffered a detriment, discrimination and/or dismissal on grounds of disability or failure of employer to make reasonable adjustments
DAG == Discrimination or victimisation on grounds of age
MAT == Suffer a detriment and/or dismissal on grounds of pregnancy, child birth or maternity
TheResearcher · 22 October 2025 at 15:25
Oh boy, it seems they have a full week then. That may explain why they do not reply to whistleblowing disclosures, regardless of the medical evidence they are sent!
TigerWhoCametoET · 22 October 2025 at 21:04
Thank you for posting this. It does seem these days that the main benefit of studying for a Cambridge degree in law is the opportunity to attend court cases every other week as your place of study responds to claims of violating it.
21percent.org · 22 October 2025 at 22:18
Indeed, Cambridge has the edge. If you go to Oxford, then the same experience involves a trip to Reading ET
Oxford
DDA == Suffered a detriment, discrimination and/or dismissal on grounds of disability or failure of employer to make reasonable adjustments
BOC == Breach of Contract
UDL == Unfair dismissal
With all the gagging orders in place, it’s hard to say which of the two Universities is appearing most in the Tribunals.
TigerWhoCametoET · 23 October 2025 at 00:15
It is saddening how many amazing scholars are ending up at tribunal for how Oxbridge has mistreated them. Whatever the circumstances well managed universities don’t end up alienating talented and inspiring people this way. It is no wonder Oxbridge are tanking in the rankings, if they discard the most valuable resource they have.
ExCam · 23 October 2025 at 17:29
“It is no wonder Oxbridge are tanking in the rankings, if they discard the most valuable resource they have”
in the minds of those in charge, the only valuable resource is the “brand” so no matter how talented you are disposable and replaceable
alas this fails to understand that trashing our rising scholars is surest way for any university to destroy its global reputation
Darwin09 · 23 October 2025 at 23:57
God, what kind of toxic mismanagement decides it should take its own talent pool to court!! Presume that what they are thinking is (something like) that they can “win” by hiring expensive lawyers and stupid legal games.
But all the world sees is not the legal pros or cons – only a university that is at war with itself. A university at war with its own future.
If they “win” they only secure victory against themself.
Their future demise as a place to attract talent… The mask is off and truly it is sad to see how far they have fallen intellectually / morally and culturally.
:-( · 24 October 2025 at 10:47
>> A university at war with its own future
that’s what the entire world sees alas miserably they do not
Bloody right · 22 October 2025 at 14:45
Bloody right…
SPARTACUS · 24 October 2025 at 09:29
I have explained many times what the problem is: with any internal dispute of any kind (grievance, bullying, misconduct, plagiarism, etc) the University oligarchy before any process starts decides a priory what they want the outcome to be! If you are on the wrong side of that decision you become a victim and effectively you are finished! This is why so many cases are now in Employment Tribunals or Courts! Top Universities are now highly toxic places! UCam is most likely the worst of the lot!
Anonymous · 24 October 2025 at 13:33
Indeed, all decisions in such HR processes are very definitely pre-determined, and this is one of the most urgent messages that myself and others are trying to get out, as it may seem hard to believe for many, but it’s true. And make no mistake, this deadly disease has spread even to the lowest ranked Universities. The only difference being that some Universities have more tax-payer money to throw at it.
In any given HR process, if HR and management wish to save/help someone, then their material will count as meaningful evidence, regardless of content. If they do not, then it will not. It’s as simple as that.
They really don’t care who you are or what you have done for the University. If you cross them, by genuine active bystanding against someone they are protecting, or criticising HR etc even on relatively minor matters, then you will be branded a critical danger to the system, to be silenced or expelled at all costs.
I recall a particular case at another University where hard evidence was completely ignored concerning very serious misconduct of a manager. On the other hand, the material from this undeserving protectee, which contained nothing but non-specific nonsense, devoid of any supporting evidence whatsoever, and not even related to the case, was considered compelling evidence of the very highest order of their innocence and the guilt of the Whistleblower. * The perpetrator wasn’t even questioned on the accusations!! *
The blatant corruption on display shows just how far gone the system has become, and is probably beyond fixing throughout the sector without major external pressure for radical reform.
I’ve also seen “scripts” which are distributed by HR to panel members before disciplinary hearings, even though HR is supposed to be fully impartial and independent, and even the panelists are supposed to be independent of each other.
It’s all well beyond farcical, and I’m sorry to say it gets much worse.
TheResearcher · 24 October 2025 at 13:47
“If you cross them, by genuine active bystanding against someone they are protecting, or criticising HR etc even on relatively minor matters, then you will be branded a critical danger to the system, to be silenced or expelled at all costs.”
This only works if the number of these alleged “dangerous” members are low in numbers and if people who know what is happening look the other way. If the former gets to tens or hundreds, if they decide to speak collectively, and if those who know decide no longer to accept witnessing misconduct and close their eyes, it does not matter what HR wants, because they will be the minority, and not a particularly gifted one.
SPARTACUS · 24 October 2025 at 13:54
Correct! So what I said also means the reverse for those the University oligarchy decides a priori they are to be protected at all cost (which obviously includes the Chest paying legal costs)! These ‘protected by the oligarchy’ can be serial bullies, unethical role models(e.g. senior faculty dating junior faculty members), alcohol abusers that are visibly intoxicated at work, etc. It does not matter the University oligarchy will be at their side. This sounds horrendous but is is absolutely the truth! Ask the Head of HR! She knows!!!
NoWords · 24 October 2025 at 14:10
“to be silenced or expelled at all costs”
Sadly, for the real HR nutters, it doesn’t stop there. The “critical danger to the system” is a corporate excuse for a much darker opportunity: to torment, mentally torture and eventually annihilate another human being for having crossed them in whatever sick way is only known to them.
Permanent damage, disability, financial ruin, a wrecked career with loss of opportunities elsewhere – or death by heart attack or suicide, that is where it might stop.
Anonymous · 24 October 2025 at 15:14
Sadly and frighteningly, I also know this to be so very true.
I have encountered individuals that will take advantage of the situation to act as described. As you say, some individuals are far far worse than others, and it can take just a few of these extremes to wreak havoc across an entire organisation, such is their malignancy.
But the danger is also from the same type of individual that will go out of their way to orchestrate the entire situation from scratch, and will do so from a starting point that
one wouldn’t think was possible, but it is. Such wanton destruction is usually done to fulfil some dark need within them, which as you say, only they can explain.
Once they have thrown an innocent victim overboard then the currents of insane HR processes will do the rest, in terms damage to their careers and health. And so no-one is safe. The wider academic community must really take notice of this.
The danger is also that such individuals can operate undetected and may appear quite benign. But when you are caught in their sights, then you have a major problem on your hands. Your career and mental health can be ruined long before you even realise what has been happening and who was initially responsible.
^ · 24 October 2025 at 18:04
“The danger is also that such individuals can operate undetected and may appear quite benign.”
Benign and incredibly “helpful” and “responsive”, working long hours and always available to offer suggestions to “solve” every problem, discuss the way forward or respond to an emergency. They will provide drafts and input for all those “tricky” emails others have to send, and make themselves available for chats, preferably one-on-one, dropping toxic information while ensuring there’s a paper trail that will get them off the hook…
These individuals will create catastrophes out of nothing at all, manufacture problems wherever they wish to see them, misinterpret, misunderstand and mislead, always in one and the same direction: that which yields the greatest possible damage and destruction.
I agree with Anonymous that “the wider academic community must really take notice of this” and that “no-one is safe”.
Eileen Nugent · 7 November 2025 at 12:14
A university cannot decide on an outcome, it can only try to solve an internal dispute. What universities are doing no longer works and it’s a continuous waste of public resources.
It’s very difficult (I would even say impossible) for a HR director to permit a toxic work environment to emerge in the way described above – i.e. to have no effective system in place for the regulation of work-related stress – and to then isolate themselves and other HR staff from that toxic environment that has been permitted to emerge. The fact that sub standard HR practices can work temporarily for HR staff (if people in the organisation passively accept them) can give HR staff a false sense of security in sub standard HR practices because in this case HR staff are not themselves immediately exposed to the work-related stress maximum in the toxic work environment that is being permitted to emerge.
That situation can turn out to be even worse for HR staff in the end because stress is then continuously building in the organisation until it reaches a point where the people who are being exposed to the work-related stress maximum in the toxic environment emerging are suddenly unable to passively accept the toxic work environment because a legal obligation to raise a health and safety concern is triggered. These dynamics can mean that by time HR staff themselves feel the impact of the toxic work environment it could already be highly toxic – work-related stress maximum in the environment is extremely high – and they are themselves are then suddenly being exposed to a work-related stress maximum in a highly toxic work environment at a time when others in the organisation might then have limited sympathy for them which is a significant risk for HR staff.
Eileen Nugent · 7 November 2025 at 12:27
Sub standard HR practices are passively accepted by people in an organisation for significant amounts of time – work-related stress levels build in the organisation – there is a delayed organisational transmission of organisational work-related stress impact from non HR staff to HR staff – HR staff lose control of HR processes – organisational work-related stress is then concentrated heavily on HR staff
https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-research-councils-2025-2-ukri-hr-staff-investigated-in-lengthy-bullying-probe/
Eileen Nugent · 7 November 2025 at 12:36
This is the risk of an organisation running HR processes with a predetermined outcome – generating an organisational stress sunami that then goes on to wipe out the organisational HR.
21percent.org · 24 October 2025 at 11:06
The University at the centre of this scandal (which we continue to not name) has been using the fearsome Carter-Ruck solicitors to hush up the sexual harassments scandals
This is corruption. Public money is being used to support abusers in legal cases.
TheResearcher · 24 October 2025 at 11:44
As BreakerMorant highlighted in an earlier post, “How to Deal with Plagiarism”
“It’s worth reading Claire’s web-page
https://www.carter-ruck.com/lawyers/claire-gill/
“Claire gives urgent trouble-shooting advice before publication or broadcast. Often working alongside PR advisers, she helps companies and high-profile individuals to deal with unwanted media scrutiny, with a view to preventing publication of material that would infringe their rights to reputation, confidentiality and privacy.”
The plagiarism scandal is not the only Cambridge University scandal being held up by expensive lawyers.”
Clearly, BreakerMorant was right…
Eileen Nugent · 7 November 2025 at 12:55
At the top of Claire’s profile is the statement : “Ferocious in protecting the client”
Ferocious = savagely fierce, cruel or violent That sums up the current problems with the legal system – that is how legal advisors treat those who raise concerns in e.g. the NHS – they are savagely fierce, cruel and violent to individual who raise legitimate concerns.
For what legitimate purpose are these legal advisors ferocious? for the purpose of everyone waiting longer for an ambulance should they need one? for the purpose of everyone waiting longer in A & E should they need to go there? All that ferocity in protecting the client – for what?
Eileen Nugent · 7 November 2025 at 13:05
Ferocious for the purposes of creating a state of perpetual dependence of an organisation on urgent (= extremely expensive) legal advice to enable the continuous syphoning of public funds intended for higher education? Ferocious in the hoovering up public funds intended for cancer research and the gobbling up the opportunities of young academics?
Eileen Nugent · 7 November 2025 at 13:18
Ferocity will just be met with ferocity and this will not be conducive to finding a resolution to an organisational dispute.
Whistler · 24 October 2025 at 13:38
If it were only public money used to protect alleged perpetrators that would be bad enough.
But this is also a case of whistleblowers who were victimised for calling out acts of abuse – and are now going to court at their own expense, while the taxpayer pays the costs for the victimising actors within the institution, which never even bothered to investigate.
Eileen Nugent · 6 November 2025 at 23:24
Braving an appeal on a employment tribunal decision on complete anonymity – this person gives us all hope that the collective courage of all who actively resist any further erosion of their legal rights in these extremely difficult situations can drive higher levels of care in legal case handling. Higher levels of care in legal case handling is what is required for the justice system to recognise instances where it is limiting justice and dispensing further harm when through more careful case handling it could instead be limiting further harm and dispensing justice.
The reporting in this case seems to indicate (1) the request was accepted by the employment judge without any hearing to consider evidence or arguments (2) no legal reasoning was given for granting complete anonymity and (3) no time limit was placed on the duration of the anonymity order. The basis of the application – concerns about safeguarding university reputation and that of its staff – could apply to any case of this kind, there is no indication that the organisation has safeguarding concerns in relation to any individual something which could form the legal basis of a decision that deviates from the principle of open justice in relation to complete anonymity for a case in this type of case.
Contrast the response above – from an employment tribunal to a request for complete anonymity from a university – with the response from an employment tribunal below to a request for complete anonymity from an individual who had suffered harm at the hands of a university :
https://www.thompsonstradeunion.law/news/employment-law-review/weekly-issue-881/case-report-f-v-j-anonymity-in-disability-discrimination-proceedings
The pattern seems to be that employment tribunals are biased towards giving universities exactly what they want in an employment tribunal without a sufficiently careful analysis of the impact of this particular bias in their decision making on individuals who have already suffered significant harm at the hands of a university and the public who are left footing the legal bill for the subsequent appeals in the EAT.
“The Faculty hates women” - 21percent.org · 15 November 2025 at 07:37
[…] A UK University has been using gagging orders to silence victims of sexual harassment at Employment Tribunals, as noted in The Times and discussed here. […]