A Palestinian Academic Thought Her Ordeal With Her Employer Was Over. Then It ‘Reached Out to the Jewish Chronicle’

An academic has claimed victory after a lengthy legal battle with her former employer, in a case she says highlights the “multifaceted racisms” Palestinians in Britain face.

Dr Shahd Abusalama reached an out-of-court settlement with Sheffield Hallam University in October, ending a long-running dispute over disproven antisemitism claims. While the end of the case got a smattering of media attention, extraordinary allegations that the university broke a non-disclosure agreement in order to leak confidential and derogatory information about her to a hostile media outlet bear a closer look.

Abusalama was born and raised in Jabalia, the largest refugee camp in Palestine, and has lived through many Israeli attacks on Gaza. Operation Cast Lead, an Israeli offensive on Gaza which killed 1,383 civilians, started when she was attending her mid-term exams in high school. So when she got a job as an academic at Sheffield Hallam University in January 2022, it was a triumph.

Things quickly went sour, however.

Just three days into her employment, the university launched an investigation into comments Abusalama made on social media in which she defended a first-year student who had made a poster using the phrase “stop the Palestinian Holocaust”. Abusalama wrote that she “wouldn’t use such a politicised word” herself, but that she could understand why the student would. “Maybe she thought she’d garner European sympathy by evoking [the] ‘never again’ slogan,” Abusalama wrote. Colleagues mounted a campaign in defence of Abusalama, and the investigation was dropped shortly after it began.

But in June 2022, a second complaint was made about comments made by Abusalama that could have fallen within the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism. An investigation was launched by human rights barrister Akua Reindorf, who cleared her of any wrongdoing.

By October 2022, Abusalama wanted out. She entered into an ACAS conciliation process to agree the terms of her departure from the university. This included a mutual non-disparagement agreement: Abusalama wouldn’t criticise Sheffield Hallam and vice versa. The unfortunate episode would be left in the past.

That’s what makes what allegedly happened next so shocking.

Throughout Abusalama’s ordeal, the Jewish Chronicle (JC) newspaper had taken an extremely active interest in her case, digging up decades-old tweets and painting her as a terrorist sympathiser.

In November 2022, less than a month after Abusalama had confidentially agreed her terms of departure, the JC reported in an exclusive that Abusalama had left the university, making the end of her contract public for the first time.

The newspaper wrote: “After the months of secrecy regarding Dr Abusalama’s fate, it is notable that the university … reached out to the JC, explicitly stating that they wished to address her case.” This would mean that far from upholding the confidentiality agreement, the university had gone to the press – although the university denies this.

The JC noted: “The disclosure – made to this newspaper by a senior university official – came on the eve of an announcement today that Sheffield Hallam is about to build a second, southern branch at Brent Cross, in the heart of north London’s Jewish community.” The campus will be part of an £8bn redevelopment, with up to 5,000 students expected by 2030.

The JC’s report made no mention of the fact that Sheffield Hallam’s investigation had cleared Abusalama of antisemitism. But it did mention that its reporter had asked the university official “whether he was aware that the development is in an area with a high population of Jews”, and that “he said he was aware of this, and ‘of course we recognise that there will be concerns’.”

Were the details of the JC’s story true, it would mean that Sheffield Hallam had no faith in the integrity of its own investigation and flagrantly broke its agreement with Abusalama, undermining the rights of a member of staff in order to protect its investment from negative media attention.

In legal documents seen by Novara Media, the university denies reaching out to the JC, claiming that its official merely confirmed that Abusalama had left when asked by the journalist and talked about concerns of antisemitism in higher education in a general way. The university’s version and the JC’s can’t both be true.

Either way, the existence of the article looks even worse for the university than it already did, given subsequent events.

In the intervening period, the JC’s reputation has gone from bad to worse. In September this year, four columnists quit the newspaper amid questions over its secretive ownership, increasingly fanatical political direction and dodgy standards. The newspaper went into meltdown when it was revealed that it had published apparently fabricated stories, one of which provided Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a justification for keeping Israeli forces on the Gaza-Egypt border.

This was the nadir of a lengthy decline. Former columnist Jonathan Freedland said that the JC too often reads like “a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgments political rather than journalistic”. His late father also wrote for the paper, and Freeland said it was only because of this deep connection that he had stuck with it in recent years, “even as it has departed from the traditions that built its reputation as the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper and, in its own, somewhat quaint words, ‘the organ of British Jewry’.”

All of which makes Sheffield Hallam’s alleged efforts to placate the JC seem all the more ill-judged.

In fact, the university allegedly went even further, mounting a far-reaching briefing campaign between August and November 2022, sending information about the case to Keir Starmer – then leader of the opposition – other MPs, London mayor Sadiq Khan, various media organisations and Argent, the property developer building the campus. The university’s legal team denied sending documents to Starmer or Khan, and denied that its briefing contained any confidential information.

In a further injustice, the university has not let Abusalama see the investigation which exonerated her.

Despite that, having won an undisclosed sum, Abusalama is claiming victory. She said: “This case is fundamentally about the right to challenge Israel’s longstanding domination of the Palestinian people without fear of reprisal from those in positions of power.

“The end of this case represents one less injustice to endure during an active western-backed Israeli genocide, which has led to the displacement of my family, the burning of our home and killing, maiming and starvation of our people.”

“This victory is not just personal. It is a victory against attempts to silence advocates for justice in Palestine, including through the IHRA definition of antisemitism, a tool designed to protect Israel rather than combat anti-Jewish bigotry. Although the university has failed to verbally admit its wrongdoing, its latest actions speak louder than its lack of words – in particular its agreement to pay my legal costs, usually only payable by an unsuccessful party.

“My case highlights the multifaceted racisms and structural vulnerability that Palestinians are subjected to in Britain on a daily basis. But it also highlights that if we organise collectively and fight back, we can win.”

Now that the details have come to light, Sheffield Hallam’s comments about the matter are less expansive than they apparently were before. A spokesperson said: “We can confirm that the university has reached a mutually agreed settlement with a former member of staff. Given the nature of the agreement, we now consider this matter closed and won’t be providing any further comment.”