Senior black lecturer suing university says 'witch hunt' is a racist term

A senior black lecturer is suing his former university for racial discrimination - alleging the term “witch hunt” is racist.

Dr Mike Leary-Owhin, 66, was sacked from London South Bank University after being accused of carrying out a “witch hunt” and “playing the race card”.

He is now alleging unfair dismissal dressed in traditional Nigerian formal wear at an employment tribunal.

The planning expert claimed his former friend and colleague of 15 years Dr Duncan Tyler used racist terms against him during his disciplinary process.

They were: aggressive, slippery, “holding Division and students to ransom”, witch hunting, aggressive attitude, wet blanket, “shouted in my face twice”, blocker, bullying, “cheap and nasty”, unmanageable, bully, “continual harassment”.

The academic, of Brixton, south London, said: “Some of these terms are well known racial or racist stereotypes for Black men and have been for hundreds of years, since the advent of the 400 year old North Atlantic trade in free West African people, i.e.: aggressive, slippery, bully, unmanageable.

“I am certain Dr Tyler would not have used these words to describe a White-British male colleague, for which he presented no corroborative factual evidence.”

Dr Tyler had alleged Dr Leary-Owhin had been “more concerned with witch hunting than changing his attitude” in staff meetings, adding: “He is disruptive, a blocker, not a team player, does the minimum he can get away with, disrespect for anyone in management position and all management processes.

“His playing the race card was cheap and nasty.”

His comments were made in a statement to a disciplinary process in March 2019 that saw Dr Leary-Owhin - who he was line-managing - dismissed for misconduct.

Giving evidence last week, Dr Tyler, of Beckenham, south east London, claimed Dr Leary-Owhin’s race claims were “a game” and his comments had “no racial connotations”.

He said: “I stand by what I’ve written down.

“Mike had never raised anything with me before Christmas about race.

“I saw this as a pattern of behaviour where Mike had another argument on top of another argument, and kept reframing the argument away from where it originally was which was about the reallocation of resources.

“I saw this as a game. I thought it’s cheeky because it just follows this pattern of adding another string to the argument without any foundation to it and it was nasty because the University takes a really strong line on this, with its students and its staff, and he would have known what this meant.”

Dr Leary-Owhin described reading Dr Tyler’s comments about him as “such a distressing experience I had to stop.

“[It] was one of the most painful and upsetting moments in my 26 years at London South Bank University.”

The academic, who grew up in Manchester, added: “It left me disconsolate and dejected. It brought back horrible memories from my childhood when I was racially abused and bullied.

“The statement was a dagger thrust deeply into my self-esteem, self-confidence and sense of identity as a Black-Nigerian-British man.”

Dr Tyler replied: “I’m very sorry that you felt like that but what I’ve written down on that page and in those notes, I stand by.

“I regret using the term ‘race card’, I would not use it again but they were my notes, if that’s your reaction to all of these issues that were raised in my notes, then I’m surprised you weren’t aware of them in the first place.

“Your behaviour was so poor during that Autumn that members of the department felt very very strongly.”

He added: “We’ve been friends for the best part of 15 years. You are friends like that and then someone brings this up out of the blue and I just thought it wasn’t a very nice thing to do.

“What you did to me was bullying. You tried to undermine me throughout the Autumn of 2018.

“I was prepared to take the bullying you were giving me and it was only when you really started to have a go at the planning team. “I was under continual bombardment of not very nice emails that were questioning every decision I made and the way I managed.”

Dr Leary-Owhin is also claiming he was sacked on September 30 2019 due to whistle-blowing over staffing levels and a breach of contract by the university.

The tribunal sitting before Employment Judge Omar Khalil in Croydon, south London, continues.

Last Wednesday, government figures revealed fewer than one percent of professors at UK university were black in 2020-21 - only 160 out of 22,855.

Jo Grady, of the University and College Union, said that the figure was "indicative of a university sector that fails to value the talent and dedication of all of its workforce."

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