The University of Cambridge is facing new legal and internal challenges to its policy of forcing academics to retire at the age of 67.
Around 120 current and former professors at the institution have signed a letter to the recently installed vice-chancellor, Deborah Prentice, urging her to call a vote on abolishing the Employer Justified Retirement Age (EJRA) because of the risk of “brain drain”.
The university has already instigated a wide-ranging review of the policy – which has been used since 2012 to ensure older professors are moved off the payroll and to open up opportunities for younger academics – after the University of Oxford, the only other English institution to enforce retirement, lost a legal case against four of its former staff members.
Cambridge now also faces being sued over the EJRA itself for the first time after Ross Anderson, a computer science professor who was forced to retire in September, signalled his intention to launch a claim for unfair dismissal and discrimination.
