Exeter University sacked 'loud' lecturer unfairly

£100,000 compensation for shouty academic

A senior academic who worked for Exeter University for nearly 30 years is to receive more than £100,000 in compensation after being unfair dismissed,

Dr Annette Plaut took the university to an employment tribunal claiming she had been fired for being too loud. Exeter University says it dismissed her because of issues around two PhD students.

Dr Plaut accused the university of being "institutionally unconsciously biased" and that her loud voice came from her European Jewish background.

The Guardian reports Dr Plaut saying: “I have a naturally loud voice. As such I have no ability to sense when I am speaking loudly.

“The loud voice comes from my family background and is a perfectly normal and acceptable way to speak amongst people of middle and eastern European Jewish background. In New York or Germany where I have lived and worked for years at a time, the loudness of my voice was never mentioned even once.

“Only in Exeter have I been put under pressure to change this inherent characteristic that is fundamentally integral to me and who I am. I believe that it is the combination of being female and loud that some senior members of the university and HR [human resources] persist in condemning, as this combination contradicts their stereotypical assumptions of how a woman should behave."

Dr Plaut became the first female academic in the physics department at Exeter in 1990. The Guardian reports that she would like to return to her job, but the tribunal says this is not practical given the "entrenched bias against Dr Plaut in the human resources department and in the senior echelons of the university.

A University of Exeter spokesperson said: “We continue to believe there are serious inaccuracies in these judgments and we are appealing the decision to the employment appeals tribunal.”