The ‘Darth Vader’ tribunal speaks to our hyper-fragile times

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far less sensitive, it was possible to have some banter with a colleague without it being deemed an act of workplace discrimination. Yet today, in 21st-century Britain, merely being likened to Darth Vader has been deemed hurtful enough to warrant a £30,000 payout from an employment tribunal.

Lorna Rooke, who had worked for the NHS Blood and Transplant service since 2003, was compared to the Sith Lord by colleagues back in 2021. Her team took a Star Wars-themed Myers-Briggs test (essentially a Buzzfeed-style personality quiz with higher pretensions) as part of a team-building exercise, with a colleague filling out her answers on her behalf. Darth Vader was the result on the test. (In the quiz, a Darth Vader personality type is not someone who is evil or plotting to take over the galaxy, but merely a ‘very focussed individual’ who could bring teams together.)

This week, an employment tribunal accepted Rooke’s claim that being associated with the black-helmeted tyrant made her feel ‘unpopular’ and contributed to her low mood and anxiety. It ruled she had suffered sufficient ‘detriment’ to deserve compensation. As judge Kathryn Ramsden explained: ‘Darth Vader is a legendary villain of the Star Wars series, and being aligned with his personality is insulting.’ She added that it was ‘little wonder’ Rooke was upset by the result. What next? Emotional damages for all those millennials sorted into Slytherin instead of Gryffindor on Pottermore?

The force may be fragile with Ms Rooke, but cases like hers are only growing in number. In 2018, an RAF squadron leader won £2,000 over ‘bullying and discrimination’ after two male colleagues suggested she ‘grow a pair’. Last year, a tax worker successfully sued HMRC after her colleagues sent her an unsolicited birthday card. Back in October, after a long-running court battle stretching right back to 2019, the High Court ruled that disparaging a man’s baldness is a form of sexual harassment.

The extraordinary weight given to such petty claims speaks to the modern belief that we must never, ever, be subjected to any negative emotion. Any incident, no matter how trivial, can apparently warrant compensation if it induces feelings of ‘anxiety’. It’s a state of affairs that actually encourages us to be fragile and overstate our weakness. After all, why develop a thick skin when one whisper of the words ‘discrimination’ or ‘harassment’ can be met with grovelling apologies and a payout?

The UK Labour government’s incoming Employment Rights Bill will grant even more force to the pettiest among us. One clause in the bill will make employers liable for ‘third-party harassment’. This means that publicans, for instance, will be held responsible for what their customers say within their employees’ earshot. The Free Speech Union warns that this risks the creation of ‘banter bouncers’ who will have to police the speech of pubgoers, in order to ensure no one says anything a tribunal judge might disapprove of.

Yoda may have warned us that ‘Fear is the path to the dark side’, but ‘anxiety’ is clearly the path to a fat compensation cheque. This culture of offence, and the willingness of the courts to indulge it, could soon make workplaces so safe and sanitised that no one dares say anything. Now that really would be dark.

Georgina Mumford is a spiked intern.