British Christian teaching assistant Kristie Higgs, recently won the appeal of her firing for raising concerns in Facebook about how transgenderism and compulsory sex education was to be taught at her son’s Church of England primary school.

That overturned a previous ruling of 2020 that upheld her dismissal. It was already postponed in July 2022, when the judge had to recuse trans activist, Edward Lord, from sitting as a lay magistrate on the presiding panel.

In March 2023, Andrew Morris, former Assistant General Secretary of National Education Union (NEU), who took a strong position in favour of making relationship and sex education mandatory in primary schools, was also recused from presiding.

“Freedom to manifest belief is essential in any democracy”

Now, the President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, allowed Higgs’s appeal, stating that “the freedom to manifest belief and to express views relating to that belief are essential rights in any democracy, whether or not the belief in question is popular or mainstream, and even if its expression may offend”.

Eady criticised that the judges in Bristol failed to assess whether the dismissal “was prescribed by law and were necessary for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.

She also apologised to the parties for the delays.

Higgs: “Pleased but frustrated”

After the ruling, Higgs said she was “pleased that the courts have overturned the previous judgment”, but “frustrated by the further delays to receiving justice”.

According to the teacher, “from the beginning, despite the many attempts by the school to suggest otherwise, this has always been about my Christian beliefs and me being discriminated against for expressing them in my own time”, she added.

“Christian parents must have the freedom to bring their children up in line with their Christian beliefs. I want young children to be protected and Christians must also to be able to share their opinions and beliefs without fear of losing their jobs”, stressed Higgs.

“A pro-Nazi right-wing extremist”

Higgs was sacked in 2019 for “gross misconduct, illegal discrimination, serious inappropriate use of social media’ and online comments that could bring the school into disrepute and damage its reputation”.

After a six-hour interrogation, her former bosses at Fairford school, Gloucestershire, pointed out that her Christian beliefs, expressed in the posts, were “akin to that of a pro-Nazi right-wing extremist”.

Higgs discovered that the school attended by her child planned to introduce Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) to children in primary schools and wrote a Facebook post encouraging friends and family to sign a petition against it.

In a second post, she shared an an article on the rise of transgender ideology in children’s books in American schools, commenting: “this is happening in our primary schools now”.