Kristie Higgs was sacked for questioning sex education. Her legal victory is good news for all Christians

In a landmark judgment from the Court of Appeal, judges have unanimously backed Kristie Higgs, who was dismissed for gross misconduct six years ago for Facebook posts that expressed her Christian opposition to the sexualisation of young children.

In the Facebook post, Kristie wrote, “THEY ARE BRAINWASHING OUR CHILDREN” in response to news that a government consultation would take place on making Relationships Education compulsory in primary schools. According to the post, this would mean, “children will be taught that all relationships are equally valid and ‘normal’ so that same sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage, and that gender is a matter of choice, not biology.” (See here for Premier Christianity’s coverage on sex education concerns) 

Today’s ruling in Kristie’s favour is generally recognised to be extremely significant. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) intervened in it because of its importance, as did the Free Speech Union, the Association of Christian Teachers, Sex Matters and the Church of England Archbishop’s Council. At least one other important freedom of expression case has delayed its hearing until after this judgment came out.

An absolute right

Six years ago, Kristie used her private Facebook account to share an article and petition objecting to a compulsory sex education programme which promotes controversial gender identity theory to young children. This programme was being used in her son’s Church of England primary school.

Because of these posts, one of Kristie’s Facebook friends reported her to the school where she worked (not the same one that her son attended). Her employer commenced a formal investigation and called Kristie in to a six-hour long interrogation, during which she was told that she had no “absolute right” to freedom of speech.

When Kristie tried to explain that her posts reflected her Christian beliefs, she was told to keep her religion out of it. She was compared to a “pro-Nazi right-wing extremist” and eventually dismissed for “illegal discrimination”, “serious inappropriate use of social media” and “online comments that could bring the school into disrepute and damage the reputation of the school.”

Now, the Court of Appeal has made a landmark ruling that the school discriminated against Kristie by dismissing her for her posts. It clarified the law on free speech protections at work and then ruled that Kristie’s posts did not bring the school into disrepute, and she was fully entitled to express her Christian beliefs in this way.

The tip of the iceberg

Kristie Higgs is not the only person to have been sacked for expressing her Christian views. Rev Dr Bernard Randall lost his job as a school chaplain after he suggested that pupils were free to disagree with LGBT ideology a chapel sermon. His case can now proceed, thanks to this new judgment. Gozen Soydag lost her job as a school pastoral manager at a Catholic school for social media posts promoting a Christian perspective on marriage. Keith Waters was forced out of his job as a school caretaker after posting on X expressing his Christian concerns about Pride events being harmful for children.

And even these which are public knowledge represent the tip of the iceberg. Christian Concern gets around 1,000 case inquiries per year from Christians who are concerned about running into trouble for expressing their Christian beliefs. Most do not get to court or do not want publicity. Many, many more are deciding to self-censor by keeping their views to themselves and avoiding expressing their Christian beliefs at all.

This judgment should change that culture and will serve to protect Christians in all occupations in the UK. There is now a much clearer and higher bar for employers who do dismiss their employees for stating their views. The problem has been that, in the view of too many employers, expression of many Christian beliefs is regarded as an automatic risk to reputation. Consequently, multiple Christians have lost their jobs merely for saying what they think. 

A win for all

This judgment should bring that to an end. It should never have been the case that you can lose your job merely for saying you are concerned about inappropriate sex education, or that you believe marriage is between a man and a woman. We have been living in extraordinarily anti-Christian times. Sacking someone for expressing such Christian beliefs would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago.

This judgment will serve as a much needed and very welcome riposte. Christian Concern is supporting several Christians whose cases have received a significant boost from this ruling. I expect many more wins for Christians in the courts to come, not to mention hundreds more that can be nipped in the bud at an earlier stage.

This is not just a win for Kristie, but it is a win for all Christians. Those of us who have kept our faith private, or self-censored, should be emboldened. We ought not to have feared before, and we have even less reason to fear now.

As the saying goes, “Freedoms not fought for are freedoms forfeited.” The precious freedom to express your Christian beliefs without fear of losing your job has been fought for and retained. Now it needs to be used and preserved.