A Christian former school employee in Gloucestershire, England, has successfully appealed her dismissal over social media posts criticizing LGBT relationship teaching. In a recent judgment, a panel comprised of Lord Justice Underhill, Lord Justice Bean, and Lady Justice Falk ruled in favor of Kristie Higgs, who was terminated from Farmor’s School in 2019. Higgs had shared posts on social media expressing concerns over the ‘No Outsiders In Our School’ program, which educates primary school students on the Equality Act. Her comments included references to “brainwashing our children” regarding the teaching’s focus on gender fluidity and same-sex marriage.
Higgs was initially dismissed for gross misconduct following an anonymous complaint suggesting her views could harm the school’s reputation. However, the latest court ruling found an initial decision to remand the case to an employment tribunal was “unlawfully discriminatory.”
“In the present case the claimant, who was employed in a secondary school, had posted messages, mostly quoted from other sources, objecting to Government policy on sex education in primary schools because of its promotion of ‘gender fluidity’ and its equation of same-sex marriage with marriage between a man and a woman,” noted Lord Justice Underhill.
“It was not in dispute… that the claimant’s beliefs that gender is binary and that same-sex marriage cannot be equated with marriage between a man and a woman are protected by the Equality Act,” he added.
He described how the school had justified Higgs’s firing “on the basis that the posts in question were intemperately expressed and included insulting references to the promoters of gender fluidity and ‘the LGBT crowd,'” but said this was not sufficient cause, given there was no evidence she had expressed her beliefs at school or discriminated against any of her students.
The ruling comes as President Donald J. Trump is instructing Attorney General Pam Bondi to root out “anti-Christian bias” in the U.S.
