Personnel Today quotes Vivienne Shirley on the Kristie Higgs religious discrimination case
Kristie Higgs lost her job at Farmor’s School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, after she expressed her views about how LGBT relationships and sex education were taught in schools.
An employment tribunal in 2020 dismissed Higgs’ case against the school, finding it did not directly discriminate or harass her on the basis of her religion. But Higgs appealed against the ruling and, in a new judgment handed down on 16 June, the Employment Appeal Tribunal sent the case back to the employment tribunal to be reconsidered.
Vivienne Shirley, trainee solicitor currently in our Employment team, comments in Personnel Today:
“Rather than the court coming to a concrete decision on gender critical beliefs, the case has been sent back to the employment tribunal.
“The EAT found the original tribunal had applied the wrong test before coming to its decision. This appeal is therefore not the end of the saga and the tribunal will have to look at this again to decide whether the school’s actions went too far in limiting Mrs Higgs’ freedom of expression.
“In these cases, it’s very much a balancing act based on the specific facts of the case – what was said to whom, how and why.”
Read the full article in Personnel Today here.
