Edwards Lords participation in activist events/protests regarding womens spaces has absolutely nothing to do with this case.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f86f3e3e90e07415b7c9de5/Mrs_K_Higgs_V_Farmor_s_School_-1401264.2019-_Judgment.pdf
From the employment tribunals decision
Key Facts:
Mrs Higgs was employed by the School from 2012. At the time of the events giving rise to these claims, she was a pastoral administrator and work experience manager. In the first of those roles she was responsible for overseeing students who had been removed from a class for being disruptive.
On 26 October 2018, Mr Evans was sent an email from someone outside the School making a complaint about Mrs Higgs. Mrs Higgs had made a posting on Facebook and the complainant asserted that she had demonstrated homophobic and prejudiced views against the LGBT community. The relevant post is essentially a reposting of a piece written by someone other than Mrs Higgs to which she had added “Please read this! They are brainwashing our children!” and an exhortation to sign a petition. The post relates to the teaching in schools of same sex relationships, same sex marriage and gender being “a matter of choice”.
Mr Evans replied to the complainant on 29 October to thank her for her report and telling her it would be helpful “if you have access to any similarly offensive posts” also made by Mrs Higgs if she forwarded screenshots. As a result, Mr Evans was sent another example of Mrs Higgs reposting articles again written by a third party. The article relates to gender fluidity, describing it as a “perverted vision” and the complainant expresses the view that Mrs Higgs “seems to find...obnoxious” a category of person that would include several children at the School. This would appear to be a reference to LBGT pupils.
Religion or belief are protected characteristics and Mrs Higgs contended that she had been directly discriminated against and harassed by reason of her religion or belief.
Mrs Higgs is a Christian but it was not her case that she had been directly discriminated against or harassed for her Christianity per se (and clearly she had not been).
Rather, she contended that the following beliefs that she held had resulted in her mistreatment.
(a) Lack of belief in “gender fluidity”.
(b) Lack of belief that someone could change their biological sex/gender.
(c) Belief in marriage as a divinely instituted life-long union between one man and one woman.
(d) Lack of belief in “same sex marriage”. Whilst she recognises the legalisation of same sex “marriage”, she beliefs that this is contrary to Biblical teaching.
(e) Opposition to sex and/or relationship education for primary school children.
(f) A belief that she should “witness” to the world, that is when unbiblical ideas/ideologies are promoted, she should publicly witness to Biblical truth.
(g) A belief in the literal truth of the Bible, and in particular Genesis 1v 27: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”.
It was conceded by the School that items (c) – (e) in paragraph 30 above did amount to religious or philosophical beliefs falling within s10 of the Act. Items (f) and (g) did not really concern us but it was contended that items (a) and (b) did not so qualify.
In short, we concluded that the beliefs in question did satisfy the final test in Grainger and therefore that Mrs Higgs’ beliefs in relation to gender fluidity attracted the protection of the Equality Act.
Section 212(1) of the Equality Act provides, in effect, that harassment and direct discrimination are mutually exclusive. We therefore address them separately and begin by considering direct discrimination.
We begin by addressing the question of whether the School had any right to take action in relation to matters that Mrs Higgs might have regarded as private.
It is correct that what she put on her Facebook page would only be visible to her “Facebook friends”. However, she told us there were over 100 such people, and they included parents of children at the school where she worked.
There was nothing to prevent anyone taking screenshots of Mrs Higgs’ postings and circulating them more widely, as Mrs Higgs accepted. The fact is that anyone posting on such a platform as Facebook effectively loses control of their posts, at least when a large number of people can access them. In all the circumstances, we did not consider she had any real expectation of “privacy” in relation to matters that she had chosen to publish in this way. The School was fully entitled to take action in relation to the posts.
Addressing then the claim of direct discrimination, in order for her claim to succeed we would have to be satisfied that her treatment (ie the steps within the process itself) was because of her beliefs. We had to determine the rationale for that treatment.
The origin of the entire proceedings was the email of complaint dated 26 October 2018 which describes the views posted on Facebook as homophobic and prejudiced against the LBGT community. The complainant had – reasonably - inferred that the views expressed in the posts reflected the views of Mrs Higgs herself and concluded that those posts exhibited animus against the LGBT community, and trans people in particular.
The thrust of the subsequent investigation is reflected in the allegations made against Mrs Higgs that resulted in her dismissal. They were
“1 That you have contravened section 6.2 of the Conduct Policy (copy attached), in particular
a. Bullet point 6: any illegal discrimination
b. Bullet point 13: serious inappropriate use of social media eg
Facebook or other online comments that could bring the
school into disrepute
2 That you have contravened section 5.1 of the Conduct Policy, in
particular:
a. Bullet point 6: breaches code of conduct applicable to or
adopted by the school
3 That you have contravened section 2.1 of the schools (sic) Code of
Conduct (copy attached) relating to communications on your Facebook account that could be interpreted as illegal discrimination.
4 That you have contravened section 8.4 of the school’s Code of Conduct relating to communications on social media sites, having made comments on your Facebook account that could damage the reputation of the school.”
By way of explanation of those matters, section 6.2 of the Conduct Policy set out examples of gross misconduct, and allegation 1 against Mrs Higgs identified two that the School contended might apply to what she had done. As to allegation 2, section 5.1 gives examples of misconduct and in the dismissal letter the School identified two items with the Code of Conduct that Mrs Higgs had fallen foul of, essentially amounting to acting in a way that might bring the School into disrepute and potentially demeaning or humiliating pupils. Allegation 3 was not found proven against Mrs Higgs. In relation to allegation 4, section 8.4 of the Code of Conduct provided that communications on social media should not be inappropriate and should not bring the School into disrepute. The School eventually took the view that allegation 4 was subsumed within number 2.
The letter of dismissal makes a number of references to the email of complaint, pointing out that the complainant took offence and described the posts as homophobic and prejudiced against the LGBT community. The letter also talks of the language in the posts being inflammatory and quite extreme.
In particular, the second post states, amongst other things “The LGBT crowd with the assistance of the progressive School systems are destroying the minds of normal children by promoting mental illness” and “the far-left have hijacked the learning environment and they insist on cramming their perverted vision of gender fluidity down the throats of unsuspecting school children who are a government mandated captive audience”. The post in question is specifically about the use of books in schools in America which, according to the post, promote the concept of gender fluidity.
The language is florid and provocative, and is no doubt intended to be. However, the School considered that the consequence was that a reader (such as the complainant) might conclude that someone who associated herself with such a post (as Mrs Higgs had done) not only felt strongly that gender fluidity should not be taught in schools but was also was hostile towards the LBGT community, and trans people in particular.
Although not stated as clearly or simply as this, the act of which we concluded Mrs Higgs was accused and eventually found guilty was posting items on Facebook that might reasonably lead people who read her posts to conclude that she was homophobic and transphobic. That behaviour, the School felt, had the potential for a negative impact in relation to various groups of people, namely pupils, parents, staff and the wider community. It was a suspicion that she had done so that brought about the entire process.
We were also conscious that Mrs Higgs made it clear that she had no intention of desisting from making any further such posts in the future. The suggestion that she might was not, as Mr Stroilov suggested, an invitation to her to renounce her beliefs. Mr Conlan told us that had those beliefs been simply stated on her Facebook page in the form which they appear in paragraph 30 above, no further action could or would have been taken against her. We accepted his evidence to that effect.
We concluded that not only the dismissal but the entire proceedings taken against Mrs Higgs were motivated by a concern on the part of the School that, by reason of her posts, she would be perceived as holding unacceptable views in relation to gay and trans people – views which in fact she vehemently denied that she did hold.
In short, that action was not on the ground of the beliefs but rather for a completely different reason, namely that as a result of her actions she might reasonably be perceived as holding beliefs that would not qualify for protection within the Equality Act (and, as we say, beliefs that she denied having).
We concluded that there was not. Our view was that her treatment was not because of the relevant beliefs and accordingly her claim of direct discrimination failed.
(her harrassment claim fails as well).