GC Teacher sues government

[KnowsWhatAGiraffeIs]

Can't see a thread on this yet.
This is exclusive in the Mail on Sunday: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12988019/Teacher-sues-Government-misgendering-student.html
He holds GC beliefs and refused to use a child's trans name in the classroom so he got barred from teaching and working with children.
Good on him, hopefully this case will be a landmark for teachers.

Meant to add: He's suing them over the decision to bar him, which came out the same day as the government's new trans guidance for schools.

FFS. The child legal name - it is what it is.

So the schools is saying that they will accommodate a child who declares that they now identify as - opposite sex, another religion, an animal, alien etc or maybe fancy being addressed as ‘your lordship’?

Who are they kidding? All the staff and kids know Johns name is John. Even if he demands to be called Mary. And this doesn’t mean he can use the girls loos either.

Surely then they could bar teachers for calling little Izzy, Isabelle?

Potentially! I have a silly flowery name and absolutely loathed it as a child.

My family (mostly) use a nickname (not related to the real one) and I begged them to let me be called that at school (I got teased mercilessly over my real name) but the school refused because my name on the roll was my name on the roll.

I think this is the case where the female student decided she wanted to be a boy - so far, so predictable - but then wanted to enter a maths competition, which was for girls only. I believe this teacher acquiesced to this, so she was a girl when it suited her. This teacher's been on Free Speech Nation (GB News) a couple of times.

It’s interesting to note that it’s the Home Office which is responsible for DBS, not Department for Education.

That would seem to suggest that the DBS was originally envisaged as protecting vulnerable individuals from acts that reach the level of criminality (sexual assault, voyeurism, physical assault) and not envisaged as covering philosophical objections to / well-being concerns about the impact of campaigning by external lobby groups with a background in seeking to confuse children about reproductive biology.

However I guess there will be relevant arguments relating to DBS policies on safeguarding in non-education settings that could be relied on by DBS to support their approach.

I’d guess that the DBS will go with a black and white “there was a policy and you refused to follow it” defence. Which may well win the day. Perhaps the complainant will argue that if it’s about protecting young people from harm, the question of whether the lobby groups are causing the most harm, or those concerned adults seeking to moderate the impact of those lobby groups’ endeavours is a question on which DBS have ‘picked a side’ without appropriate prior consideration and that this question is a live issue as evidenced by the guidance. Also that there is no evidence of actual harm arising from “misgendering” other than those lobby groups’ self-interested and hyperbolic claims. Reading the article, the complainant’s key argument is that the penalty was disproportionate.

It will be very interesting to see how this pans out.

That's a very good point. I have one of the longer names and always went by an unusual shortened version (think Alexandria shortened to Andrea). Teachers almost always used the full version or shortened it to the more common version (in this example, Alex) and I cannot imagine ever raising it as a safeguarding issue. Another girl went by her middle name and we (including her) would all burst into giggles when any supply teacher called her by her first name which was what was on the register, but again, not a safeguarding issue.

Thinking about it, isn't it a bigger safeguarding issue to obfuscate who you are talking about/to by using a name other than the correct one? It raises just as much of a problem as calling a vulva a foo foo or a fairy and could potentially be manipulated in the same way in court.

The name will have been changed on SIMS or ClassCharts.
The same as if a child's surnames are changed or any child who "wishes to be known as x". Happens more often than you think and not just for identity/trans.
You do the register as per your job.
You choose to dig your heels in then you're not doing your job.
Have had many name changes - only two for trans issues - they chose unisex names anyway. Regardless, take the bloody register. Headcounts aren't always accurate and you can't other a student by ignoring them. If insisting on using another name, that is rude.
You'd get away with not addressing them by their name by not cold-calling and just pointing to all with hands up or using different questioning techniques and asking peers to choose other peers, but the register itself is a safeguarding issue.
You can argue that enabling gender identity preferences is also a safeguarding issue but bottom line, that's not your call to make - you have triple numbers of students with individual needs. Calling each by their preferred name isn't asking a lot.

And yes, I have had (non-trans) students call me out over the years for shortening their names or mispronouncing them: I always apologise and make a note. Still sometimes get it wrong (Aaron mainly) It's a small thing but teenagers like to be called what they like.

That’s helpful Katy. I can totally see the “do your job, it’s not about you” argument.

What’s your view on a lifelong ban from teaching and volunteering as an appropriate penalty for not taking the register? It seems heavy handed to treat misgendering the same as a teacher who’s found to have a computer hard drive full of child sexual abuse videos. And it’s not like the nation has got a vast surplus of maths teachers.

Yes it’s not a basic ‘not calling a child by a preferred name’ it’s pretending that a child has changed sex and treating them accordingly. Which means that the other pupils need to do this also. Or what - bans and suspensions because they don’t go along?

Okay - I clicked through.
The teacher did just point for questioning.
Sixth form college so classes smaller - it will have been obvious what he was doing unless he named no-one/treated all students the same.
expressing his gender critical beliefs
That's the part where they'll counter-claim he was being belligerent/causing emotional harm. We're not paid to tell any student our own religious, political or personal opinions. You don't get drawn into debates unless it is part of the syllabus/relevant to what your subject specialism is or you're running Debate Club.

Yes there’s really important point at the heart of this case: which causes a child more harm, refusing to use preferred pronouns that don’t match the child’s sex, or affirming a child’s delusion? The panel that banned this teacher assumed that it is “harm” to refuse to use the child’s preferred pronouns, but there is no evidence that is true, and plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Another, completely separate point, is whether it is appropriate to allow a child to control a teacher’s speech and force the teacher to say things which are incompatible with the teacher’s beliefs, even where the the teacher’s beliefs are protected under the equality act. A teacher on here mentioned that it is mostly school bullies who change their pronouns in school, which makes sense. Imagine the thrill, for a bully, of forcing a teacher to choose between tell lies or facing the sack.

Thanks Katy, that’s helpful insight into why he was put on a disciplinary.

What’s your view on the lifelong ban? Inevitable result of a (declared or perceived) refusal to set personal belief to one side?

Even if he was in the wrong for not using this pupil's new nickname, which is debatable, the punishment does not fit the crime. Getting barred for life from teaching is an incredibly excessive reaction.

The peers won't have faced the same issue as they will either have called them by their preferred name or not be friends with them anyway.
The DBS ban, however, seems extreme. I have no idea how that would have come about. They clearly think that this man will go from college to college, doing the same.
Perhaps he was told to just get on with teaching maths but had more complaints by the student(s). Perhaps they wanted to let him go quietly but, faced with a tribunal, took it further.
I might have more sympathy were it not for his statement:

'If you can't say something to a student because you might upset them, then by that logic you can't tell a student to 'work harder' if they score a bad mark in a test.'

There's a big difference between giving feedback/constructive criticism and in so doing, upsetting a student who is disappointed with their performance and making unsolicited comments you have already been told upsets them.

What I find interesting about this case is that teachers are generally barred from teaching at a teacher misconduct panel, with a decision made by the Secretary of State. The panel findings are published on the government website so it's all transparent. https://www.gov.uk/search/all?keywords=Kevin+lister&organisations%5B%5D=national-college-for-teaching-and-leadership&organisations%5B%5D=teaching-regulation-agency&order=updated-newest

This particular case seems to have used a different method to bar him from teaching and I'm not sure why or how.

Also can't help noticing the teacher being listened to and having their views broadcast and published is a male.

Getting barred for life from teaching is an incredibly excessive reaction.

I agree. Trumped up nonsense.

@noblegiraffe he's effectively barred from teaching because a DBS check for him would come back showing he's barred from teaching children due to having "endangered" them. So no school or teaching establishment could hire him as they'd be open to all kinds of issues if they did.

He's not been convicted of any kind of offence, or even charged with anything. He's being blacklisted on the say so of the DBS and I think they are massively overstepping their jurisdiction with this.

"Child endangerment" is surely supposed to be for hurting or abusing children, not to be used to prop up civil service activists' dubious ideologies.

Yes, but surely a teacher misconduct panel would be more appropriate? He hasn't committed a crime, so bypassing the transparent scrutiny of his behaviour seems odd, particularly when you read the teacher misconduct review panels and see what they do deal with (e.g. inappropriate sexual behaviour).

@noblegiraffe yes absolutely, and it's bizarre that the DBS has decided to take this action independent of any criminal investigation or professional conduct investigation. No one knows the process that was used to come to this conclusion, nor the evidence they were given. It's an unaccountable decision making process.

Neither are we paid to mindlessly follow someone else’s beliefs. Let’s be honest here, this isn't about someone not calling a child by a different name. It’s about someone being forced to go along with gender identity ideologies that are dangerous, particularly for children.