Accents, Race and ‘Harassment’

In Carozzi v University of Hertfordshire, [2024] EAT 169, the EAT held that an employment tribunal was wrong to find that comments about an employee’s accent did not amount to harassment under the Equality Act 2010.

Harassment (s26 Equality Act 20210) is defined as unwanted behaviour related to a protected characteristic which has the purpose or effect of, amongst other things, violating the employee’s dignity.

Ms Carozzi was Brazilian. The question for the EAT was whether criticism of an accent qualified as harassment on grounds of race (which includes nationality and ethnic origin).

It is clear from the statutory definition that the behaviour complained about only needs to be related to the protected characteristic – there does not need to be an identifiable motivation or mental component on the part of the employer to harass.

The EAT noted that there it was quite possible to envisage circumstances in which harassment occurs where the protected characteristic (in this case race) did not motivate the harasser at all.  For example, an inadvertent and apparently innocent comment could ‘have the effect’ of violating the employee’s dignity without being at all intentional.

The EAT went on to observe that an accent may be an important part of a person’s national or ethnic identity. Comments about a person’s accent could therefore be related to the protected characteristic of race. Criticism of such an accent could violate dignity. Accordingly, harassment is made out.

Comment: The EAT’s finding in this case does not mean that any mention of a person’s accent will automatically amount to harassment but, in this case, the behaviour was so marked that it obviously did.

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Authors

Victoria von Wachter

Call 1997

Related areas

Employment

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