Social worker Rachel Meade, who was harassed and disciplined by both her employer and regulatory body, has conclusively won her case against them.
Last week an employment tribunal found that Rachel Meade’s employers, Westminster City Council, and her regulatory body, Social Work England, were guilty of harassing her for her lawfully-held beliefs. We are absolutely delighted that Rachel has been vindicated and will be awarded damages.
So what happened? In 2020, Rachel, who had been a dedicated and respected social worker for more than 20 years, used her personal Facebook account to share content from women’s rights groups such as Fairplay for Women and Woman’s Place UK, articles from mainstream media and a petition to ban men from women’s sports.
Her posts were in a small Facebook group, seen by a small number of Facebook friends. Nonetheless, one of those “friends” was a work colleague, who reported her to her employer for posting “transphobic content”. In response, Westminster suspended her for gross misconduct. In an even more extraordinary step, it also suspended two of her colleagues for failing to report the posts to them. Social Work England threatened her with fitness to practise proceedings and sanctioned her for misconduct.
Fortunately, the employment tribunal ruled conclusively in Rachel’s favour. It was damning in its criticism of both Westminster and Social Work England. The two organisations were also found at fault for uncritically adopting an inaccurate interpretation of equality law put forward by Stonewall and other lobby groups (sometimes known informally as “Stonewall law”).
An unequivocal judgement
The judgement states unequivocally that Rachel’s right to express gender-critical views is protected under the law:
“All of the Claimant’s Facebook posts and other communications fell within her protected rights for freedom of thought and freedom to manifest her beliefs as protected under Articles 9 and 10.”
This is a significant win – the first time a regulator and an employer have together been found to have been liable for discrimination relating to gender-critical beliefs. We hope that HR departments, employers, unions and regulatory bodies study this ruling carefully. Moreover that the NMC and other regulatory bodies will recognise their obligations to their registrants, and withdraw from Stonewall schemes. The wording of the judgement is so clear and direct that it should put a stop, once and for all, to women being bullied and persecuted in their workplace for expressing the legally protected view that sex is real and that it matters.
This ruling should also send a clear message that workplace bullies will no longer be protected from scrutiny as a result of misguided, unlawful and unfair Stonewall policies that wronfully frame gender critical views as transphobic. It is shocking that Westminster City Council and Social Work England thought they could get away with bullying and harassing a woman for expressing entirely mainstream and reasonable views.
Brave and tenacious
The Forstater ruling in 2021 confirmed that the right to hold and express gender-critical views is protected under the Equality Act. The desperate argument made by Westminster and Social Work England that Rachel was disciplined not for her views, but for the manner in which she expressed them, cut no ice with the tribunal judges. They described it as “artificial and inconsistent with the contemporaneous documentation.”
The two-day remedy hearing, expected in February, will consider any future recommendations to SWE and WCC about their future conduct on this issue.