School loses Supreme Court bid over Christian staff member sacked for LGBT posts
A school in a years-long legal battle involving a staff member who was sacked after sharing social media posts about LGBT+ relationships teaching cannot take the case to the Supreme Court, justices have ruled.
Kristie Higgs, a Christian mother of two, was sacked from her role at Farmor's School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, in 2019 for sharing Facebook posts criticising teaching about LGBT+ relationships in schools.
In February, she won a Court of Appeal battle related to her dismissal, with three senior judges finding that the decision to sack her for gross misconduct was 'unlawfully discriminatory' and 'unquestionably a disproportionate response'.
The school sought to appeal against the ruling at the Supreme Court in March, but three justices refused to give the school the green light to challenge the decision in the UK's highest court.
In a decision on Thursday, which was published on Monday, Lord Reed, Lord Hamblen, and Lady Simler said that the school had asked for the go-ahead to appeal against the ruling on four grounds.
But they said that the Supreme Court 'does not have jurisdiction' to hear three of the grounds, and the fourth 'does not raise an arguable question of law'.
In response to the decision, Mrs Higgs said: 'I am relieved and grateful to the Supreme Court for this common-sense decision.
'Christians have the right to express their beliefs on social media and at other non-work-related settings without fear of being punished by their employer.'
Mrs Higgs, who worked as a pastoral administrator and work experience manager at the school, shared two posts on a private page under her maiden name in October 2018 to about 100 friends, which raised concerns about relationship education at her son's Church of England primary school.
She either copied and pasted from another source or reposted the content, adding her own reference in one post to 'brainwashing our children'.
Pupils were to learn about the No Outsiders In Our School programme, a series of books that teach the Equality Act in primary schools.
An employment tribunal found in 2020 that while Mrs Higgs' religion was a protected characteristic, her dismissal was lawful, but this decision was overturned by an Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in 2023.
But the EAT ruled the case should be sent back to an employment tribunal for a fresh decision, which Mrs Higgs' lawyers challenged in the Court of Appeal as 'unnecessary'.
In a judgment, Lord Justice Underhill, sitting with Lord Justice Bean and Lady Justice Falk, ruled in Mrs Higgs' favour in February, stating: 'The dismissal of an employee merely because they have expressed a religious or other protected belief to which the employer, or a third party with whom it wishes to protect its reputation, objects will constitute unlawful direct discrimination within the meaning of the Equality Act.'
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