Student suing university over suspension to have case tried next year

A High Court judge has rejected an application from a Royal Holloway student to issue a mandatory injunction against the university over his suspension and loss of tuition.

Brodie Mitchell, 19, applied for the injunction after an ill-tempered row at this year’s Fresher’s Fair between himself and a member of the Friend of Palestine Society escalated to appearances in the High Court, his suspension from his course, and his temporary eviction from his student accommodation.

Mitchell, 19, is a non-Jewish but fiercely pro-Zionist student, working for an undergraduate degree in politics and international relations at Royal Holloway, which is part of the University of London. He is in his second year, and is also involved in the campus Conservative Association and the Free Speech Union.

According to his witness statement presented before Mr Justice Mansfield at a High Court hearing on December 4, Mitchell had had a number of previous campus clashes with students from the Friends of Palestine. He said: “Towards the end of Freshers’ Fair on Tuesday 23 September, Ms [Huda] El-Jamal smirked and pointed at me saying something like ‘here’s the wannabe Jew….’, which was followed by a comment about me not wearing a kippah.

“I began filming the interaction as I realised I didn’t have any witnesses and said ‘You’re wearing a tea towel on your head”, referring to her Yasser Arafat-inspired keffiyeh, which I considered at the time to be a fitting off the cuff retort to her pre-emptive racist and antisemitic attack on me and reference to her jibe about my lack of a kippah”.

Mitchell said that he later accepted that his response was “poorly expressed and inappropriate” and that “it was only about politics, not about race or religion”. Essentially, his barrister Francis Hoar told the court, he was saying that “she started it and that her remark was just as bad”.

But the day after this run-in, Royal Holloway told Mitchell that he had been suspended from the University “for alleged conduct that could be considered hate speech and for filming of individuals without their consent”.

Not only was he suspended but he was (temporarily) evicted from his university accommodation.  Mitchell was then notified that he was to appear before a Royal Holloway “major misconduct panel”, to face charges of breaching the university regulations on a variety of alleged offences. They included “violent, indecent, disorderly, threatening, aggressive or offensive behaviour or language, however expressed, whilst on University property or engaged in any University activity; behaviour, action or inaction which, even if self-directed, could reasonably be seen to cause distress to other students or members of staff or could reasonably be seen to cause other students or members of staff to fear for their safety or wellbeing”.

He was subjected to a Campus Exclusion Restriction Order. Ms El-Jamal did not take part in these proceedings and Mitchell could not persuade Royal Holloway to hear an appeal. Accordingly, and funded by the Free Speech Union, he has taken a number of legal steps, which were outlined in court last week by his barrister, Mr Hoar. The university was represented by Gemma White, KC.

The student, who has a part-time job to fund his way through university, said that as a result of the suspension and consequent disciplinary proceedings, he had lost seven weeks of tuition — 68 teaching hours — and has worked on at least one occasion until 4.30 am in order to finish writing an essay on time. He applied to the court for an interim mandatory injunction against Royal Holloway to require it to extend his essay deadlines, and to provide tuition privately to enable him to catch up with his peers.

But on Monday, December 8, Judge Mansfield, a KC who has only recently been appointed as a King’s Bench judge in the High Court, noted that a number of issues raised by Mr Hoar on Mitchell’s behalf had been either partially or wholly resolved, including the extension of his essay deadlines.

The judge said that it appeared that while Mitchell could not afford, on his own account, to fund the applied for tuition costs or the legal costs of fighting his case, funds were likely to be available to him through the Free Speech Union.

The matter is now due to go to a full trial — although not before June 15 next year — and Mr Justice Mansfield said that if Mitchell were to win his case at trial, an application for the recovery of costs could be made then.