A Birmingham college has been ordered to pay a lecturer over £25,000 after her boss “humiliated” her in front of students for having dyslexia.
An employment tribunal ruled in favour of Yasmeen Afzal who claimed she suffered “relentless mistreatment” over an “extensive number of years” at her employer South and City College Birmingham.
The tribunal also found the college failed to make reasonable adjustments for Afzal’s disability, such as including reducing her workload and allowing more time for marking and other work.
Afzal was awarded £25,357.15 in compensation for successful claims of harassment and failure to make reasonable adjustments, according to a remedy judgment published last week.
Afzal brought forward multiple claims in May 2019 after suffering embarrassment when her boss mentioned she was dyslexic in front of students and subsequently went on sick leave.
Her manager, the college’s head of school for business studies and financial services named Mr Moustache in the tribunal filings, was alleged to have gone into Afzal’s class with students present asking her to fill in her absence record form and repeated the phrase “you are dyslexic” three times.
She later emailed Moustache saying she specifically remembered the comment being made three times because, as she told the tribunal, “I was the one who was suffering the embarrassment in front of the students who were present … that’s why I did not answer but wrote it down to stop the word dyslexia being mentioned again”.
When giving evidence, she said Moustache’s actions impacted her health, particularly her anxiety about disclosing her dyslexia and was “petrified” of the college and had no confidence in them.
The tribunal heard: “When she left work on that day, she saw a bus and contemplated throwing herself under it. She told us her suicidal thoughts were related to that incident only. She said she feared Mr Moustache would humiliate her in similar ways again, that is by mentioning her disability in front of others.”
The judge found it “perfectly understandable” that Afzal was sensitive to her personal information to be widely known and said the repeated reference constituted harassment.
“She was a lecturer which meant that her performance of many of the material duties of the post might be perceived by others to be affected by the disability,” the judge said.
The judge concluded: “This was harassment in public, but not only in public, it was in front of students who Mrs Afzal was responsible to teach and who had no business knowing sensitive personal information about her.”
Moustache retired in summer 2023.
College did ‘next to nothing’
Afzal accused the college of failing to “provide the necessary support, worsening my condition”. She’d been off sick for work-related reasons prior to the incident and had logged other grievances upon returning from maternity leave in 2013.
As a result of her work-related stress, she said she had severe anxiety, sleep disturbance and panic attacks and felt she had been taken away from the job she loved.
After the incident, her actual working hours were “considerably above” what she was contracted to do, according to the tribunal.
“She had nightmares that the [college] was throwing work at her that she was unable to do and in which she told them she is dyslexic. In the daytime, she thinks about what happened,” the documents added.
She asked for support from the college and shared a doctor’s report with her employers in spring 2019, which outlined that her abilities worsened when under time pressure or when she was required to juggle multiple demands.
The judge found the college did “next to nothing” for around a year before offering an extra week for marking, some readback software, which Afzal found unhelpful, and visiting lecturer to assist with the module, though Afzal “shouldered” more of the work.
She then told the tribunal she was feeling suicidal from September 2020 when she went off sick.
The tribunal concluded: “The claimant kept trying to fight for the adjustments we found should have been made. The respondent’s knowledge of her dyslexia and the issues she faced as a result, and its inaction in the face of her pleas for assistance evidently made it look to the claimant like it did not care.
She was awarded £3,000 for injury to feelings related to Moustache’s harassment plus interest and £15,000 plus interest for injury to feelings from the college’s failure to make reasonable adjustments.
South and City College Birmingham and Afzal’s legal representatives were contacted for comment.
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