The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has been considering the extent to which conduct relating to someone’s accent may be “related to” a protected characteristic for harassment purposes.
The claimant brought numerous complaints of race and religious discrimination based on her Brazilian nationality and Jewish ethnic origin, which were rejected by the ET. In criticising the ET’s analysis of the accent harassment part of her claim (the ET had wrongly looked at motive and applied a ‘because of’ test), the EAT was clear that accent can be an important aspect of a person’s national or ethnic identity, so could come within the scope of harassment depending on the circumstances. This case has been referred back to a new ET for consideration. (Carozzi v. University of Hertfordshire)
