In March, the London Central Employment Tribunal heard the case of Ms. Sato-Rossberg vs. SOAS University of London. SOAS, a world leader in Asian, African, and Middle Eastern studies, faced allegations of racism brought by Professor Nano Sato-Rossberg. However, the tribunal decisively ruled in favour of SOAS, dismissing the allegations.
Background
Professor Nano Sato-Rossberg, an academic of Japanese heritage, had been a member of the Japanese faculty at SOAS since 2014. In 2019, she was appointed Head of the Department of Languages and Linguistics, taking on the added responsibility of managing the teaching and research activities of her department. The following year, SOAS restructured its management and appointed Ms. Ozanne, a white woman, as Deputy Director. In this new role, Professor Sato-Rossberg reported directly to Ms. Ozanne, a relationship that became the focal point of the case.
Ms. Sato-Rossberg expressed immediate scepticism about having Ms. Ozanne as her manager, citing perceived bias. This scepticism quickly escalated into claims of racist treatment by Ms. Ozanne.
Ms Sato-Rossberg’s claims
In her tribunal claim, Professor Sato-Rossberg cited several incidents over 18 months, which she interpreted as discriminatory:
- Knowing she was Japanese, Ms Ozanne once spoke to her about a local sushi restaurant she had enjoyed with her family. She also brought up that her husband worked at a Japanese company
- Ms Ozanne asked the claimant to amend her automated email response during freshers week to be more welcoming to incoming students. No other colleagues were asked to do so
- During the interviewing process for a new lecturer, Ms Ozanne asked the claimant to increase the length of interviews from 20 minutes to one hour
- Ms Ozanne singled out the claimant for her department consistently filling out paperwork incorrectly, leading to delays
- Ms Ozanne was critical of the claimant’s contribution to a new project, repeatedly asking her to improve her reports and implement changes faster
There were also disputed incidents, such as a claim that Ms. Ozanne ignored a request to discuss DEI issues at a board meeting. However Ms Sato-Rossberg’s claims were often unsupported by evidence, with her claims missing from meeting minutes and lacking witness accounts. Instead, the tribunal generally favoured the respondents recollection of events, and praised Ms Ozanne as a witness.
The Tribunal found Ms Ozanne to be a dispassionate and matter-of-fact witness
Employment Tribunal Judgement
Protected Disclosure
On 16 March 2022, the claimant sent Ms Ozanne an email regarding what she saw as the breakdown of their working relationship. She requested to have a mediation meeting with her, saying ‘I hope this is not about the colour of my skin, but sadly I cannot stop
thinking about this possibility. I ask you nicely, could you please stop harassing
me?’. The allegation of racism is a protected disclosure, meaning unfavourable treatment due to the claim is illegal.
As such, later that month, SOAS launched an independent investigation into the racism claim. After a prolonged investigation, they found that no discrimination had taken place, and as such could not offer compensation or an apology to Ms Sato-Rossberg. Instead, they found that stress arising from the claimant’s personal life and covid was most likely to explain how she felt.
Judge’s Findings
The tribunal also found that no discrimination had taken place, and praised the work of the investigation as evidence-based and compelling. Instead, they found that the claimant had had a preconception that Ms Ozanne was racist, which had led her to come to the conclusions she did; Ms Ozanne was simply engaged as a normal manager trying to ensure her subordinates carried out their duties. Her actions were not related to the claimant’s race.
Whilst Ms Sato Rossberg’s background may have sparked the conversation about sushi, such conversations were not to her detriment, nor were they harassment. The tribunal emphasised that dignity is not necessarily violated by trivial or unintended remarks and cautioned against fostering a culture of hypersensitivity.
A reasonable person would not take offence at such complementary and friendly words.
Employment Tribunal Judge
The judge however did criticise the length of the investigation. Taking 11 months, this placed the claimant under unnecessary stress over this period. Nonetheless, no reward was made for this. Ultimately all claims failed, with the tribunal describing Ms Sato-Rossberg’s claims as ‘hyperbolic’, ‘hypersensitive’ and having a ‘predisposition to find fault with Ms Ozanne’.
HR Takeaways
Ms Sato-Rossberg’s case was not strong from the start. In her evidence, she was not able to show that she had been treated less favourably on the grounds of race. In contrast, SOAS demonstrated that Sato-Rossberg was underperforming in the role, and Ms Ozanne was taking reasonable steps to improve this. Racism did not play a role. Once bringing up a person’s national cuisine did not constitute unfavourable treatment or harassment.
Nonetheless, SOAS could show that they had taken the allegations of racism seriously by conducting an independent investigation. Additionally, they were careful to ensure that Ms Sato-Rossberg did not receive unfavourable treatment for making the protected disclosure of racism allegations. Ultimately SOAS’ clean record combined with effective handling of the allegations led to the positive result for the respondents.