'No settlement, no apology' — Oxford University accused of trying to silence academic

Despite winning a landmark legal battle over 'sham' teaching contracts, Alice Jolly believes it won't benefit other tutorial staff

- Anna Fazackerley

An academic who won a landmark court battle last year against Oxford University for employing her and her colleague on “sham” gig economy contracts has criticised the university for trying to brush their case under the carpet.

Alice Jolly and her colleague Rebecca Abrams, both award-winning authors, taught on Oxford’s prestigious creative writing course for 15 years but were employed on zero-hours “personal services” contracts, often earning only £23 an hour. After they publicly challenged the university on their lack of employment rights, Oxford wrote to the Society of Authors in April 2022, agreeing to offer the two academics more appropriate contracts.

But the promised contracts never materialised — and the pair were eventually told their old contracts would not be renewed. “They didn’t even have to sack us, because we had no employment rights,’ Jolly said.

Last January, after a protracted legal fight in which Jolly says the university’s top legal team tried to “rip [them] to shreds”, a judge ruled in their favour, arguing that they should be classed as employees. It was seen as a pivotal moment for the thousands of staff who teach at Oxford and other universities on precarious contracts.

But last week Jolly told the Observer she now had no hope that Oxford had learned anything at all from the case.

“I have lost my work, been ostracised by colleagues and had no settlement from the university, no apology, no admission that the judgment has any effect on anyone else — although of course it does,” she said.