A senior female lecturer who was passed over for promotion because “she was a woman” has won more than £35,000 after an employment tribunal found that decisions made by her university were “tainted by sex”. Dr Eliane Bodanese, an engineering academic at Queen Mary University of London, brought an equal pay claim after she was rejected twice for promotion, while a male colleague was promoted instead.
The tribunal heard that her work record was described as “exemplary” and that she had generated significantly more research income for the university than her comparator. Dr Bodanese joined the university in 2003 and was promoted to senior lecturer in 2012. She currently works in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science within the Faculty of Science and Engineering.
Between 2013 and 2014, she took a year of maternity leave. After returning, she said she struggled to secure new research grants and received little support to restart her research activity. That account was supported by management appraisals, which noted that a heavy teaching workload limited her ability to develop research projects. Despite this, Dr Bodanese said the quality and impact of her research remained strong, as per reports in the Daily Mail.
In March 2021, she applied for a pay rise under the university’s staff bonus scheme. Her application was rejected, with the university later saying she had applied to the wrong scheme, even though she had been advised by Professor Wen Wang, the vice principal of the faculty. The tribunal heard that a male colleague doing “like work” had received a promotion through the same scheme.
That colleague, Dr John Schormans, had received three promotions during his time at the university. Employment Judge Catrin Lewis said the university accepted that it was possible for Dr Bodanese to have been considered for a bonus, but failed to explain why she was not.
In a second attempt in January 2022, Dr Bodanese again applied for promotion. This was rejected on the basis that her research performance was considered insufficient and that she did not go “above and beyond” her role. She raised a formal grievance, prompting an investigation.
Judge Lewis noted that Dr Bodanese had more citations in the previous five years than Dr Schormans and had led grants worth £732,000, compared with approximately £600,000 referenced in his application. The judge concluded that Dr Schormans was assessed more generously and that the research criteria applied had a disproportionate negative impact on women who had taken maternity leave.
While Dr Bodanese’s direct and indirect sex discrimination claims were dismissed, she succeeded in her equal pay case. She was awarded £30,724 in back pay plus pension contributions, bringing the total award to £35,500.
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