Are law lecturers thin skinned?

I see that the claim for damages by Mervyn Dendy, who used to be an Associate Professor at Wits Law School, was rejected by the Supreme Court of Appeal. Dendy had applied for promotion to full Professor with some other of his colleagues and was rather aggrieved at not being successful. The SCA upheld exceptions to the claims made by him on the ground that a reasonable person would not have felt humiliated and insulted in the circumstances.

I suspect the claim had more to do with the politics of affirmative action than with a person feeling personally slighted, but I do not know Mr Dendy, so can’t say for sure.