By Josh Hornsey, Sara Meyer and Hilary Larter
|Published 13 July 2026
In this case, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) upheld an employer’s appeal against findings of direct belief discrimination. The employment tribunal had wrongly treated the claimant’s rejection of systemic racism as a manifestation of his protected belief that all people should be treated equally, and had failed to analyse properly whether the employer acted because of the belief or the way the claimant expressed himself.
Section 13 of the Equality Act 2010 prohibits direct discrimination because of a protected characteristic, including a philosophical belief.
There is a distinction between holding a protected belief and manifesting it. In order for an employee's conduct to be considered a manifestation of a protected belief, it must be intimately linked to the belief, with a sufficiently close and direct nexus between the manifestation and the underlying belief.
An employer's actions against an employee who has manifested a protected belief will not amount to direct discrimination if the reason for the employer's action was not the belief itself but the inappropriate way in which the employee manifested it. However, where an employer disciplines or dismisses an employee for how they express (i.e. manifest) a protected belief, they must consider objectively whether the behaviour is clearly inappropriate and any disciplinary action must be proportionate.
Mr Garrett was employed by London Ambulance Service NHS Trust (the Trust). He identified as white British. In January 2020, Mr Garrett had an argument with a black colleague during which he used the word “roadman” in reference to him.
In June 2020, following emails from senior management about the death of George Floyd and the need to address racism, Mr Garrett had a workplace discussion and said he did not agree with the concept of systemic racism. He made comments to the effect that black people should not “hide behind their race” and that people needed to accept that their own actions led to issues such as higher incarceration rates, lower levels of education, lack of opportunity and poverty.
The Trust investigated both incidents, during which Mr Garrett was suspended on full pay. The investigation concluded without interviewing a key witness, although this was rectified at disciplinary stage. The Trust upheld the complaints, finding the conduct to be gross misconduct and issued a final written warning, with requirements to complete unconscious bias training, a black allyship workshop, and a written reflective practice exploring acceptable language in the workplace and systemic racism.
Mr Garrett claimed direct belief discrimination, relying on the belief that all people should be treated with respect irrespective of race. The tribunal treated his rejection of systemic racism as a manifestation of that belief.
The tribunal upheld three complaints of direct belief discrimination: failing to interview the key witness; failing to take account of evidence submitted by Mr Garrett; and requiring Mr Garrett to complete the written practice. The tribunal found this treatment was less favourable than what would have been applied to Mr Garrett had he not rejected systemic racism, which was a manifestation of his belief that all people should be treated equally, and that the treatment was because of the protected belief.
The EAT allowed the Trust's appeal. It held that the tribunal’s conclusion on manifestation was legally flawed. Mr Garrett's protected belief that all people should be treated with respect was a belief about how things ought to be. His rejection of systemic racism was a belief about what does or does not exist in society. The EAT found that a person could believe in equal treatment and still believe that systemic racism exists. The two beliefs therefore did not have the close and direct nexus required for one to be a manifestation of the other.
That conclusion was enough to dispose of the belief discrimination findings, because each depended on the tribunal’s finding that Mr Garrett’s rejection of systemic racism was a manifestation of his protected belief. The EAT nevertheless went on to address the other grounds of appeal because they had been fully argued.
The EAT held that the tribunal had also failed to analyse causation properly. In relation to the failure to interview the witness, the tribunal needed to consider whether the investigator would have acted in the same way if Mr Garrett had made another statement which was regarded as racially charged but was not a manifestation of a protected belief.
The tribunal was also wrong to say that no non-discriminatory explanation had been advanced for the disciplinary decision-maker’s approach to Mr Garrett’s evidence. The Trust's case was that the evidence was discounted because it lacked academic rigour. The EAT held that the tribunal had to engage with that explanation, and its failure to do so was an error.
The same problem affected the tribunal’s conclusion on the written reflective practice. The tribunal had found that the misconduct arose from the offensive manner in which Mr Garrett had acted towards colleagues, and that the decision-maker had not treated his denial of systemic racism itself as misconduct. The EAT held that the tribunal needed to engage with those findings before concluding that the requirement to undertake a written reflective practice was imposed because of a manifestation of Mr Garrett's protected belief.
This decision will be helpful for employers handling contentious workplace discussions, where employees frame their comments by reference to a protected belief. It confirms that tribunals must identify the protected belief with care and should not assume that every related opinion or stance is a manifestation of that belief. The link must be close and direct.
The case does not give employers a free hand to discipline employees for holding unpopular beliefs. It does confirm that where an employee expresses a view in a way that is objectionable, employers can take action, provided they can show that the action was taken because of that objectionable conduct and that the response was proportionate.
The practical point is to focus disciplinary reasoning on the conduct relied upon and the impact of that conduct in the workplace. If the employer's concern is the way something was said, the offensiveness of the language used, or the effect on colleagues, that should be recorded clearly at the time.
Authors
