The Michaela ‘prayer ban’ case is a victory for religious tolerance
by Rakib Ehsan, spiked:
Katharine Birbalsingh’s school has every right to remain secular.
In a landmark decision, the UK’s High Court ruled yesterday that the Michaela Community School’s ‘prayer ban’ is lawful.
The ruling has shot down accusations that the Michaela school in north London had curtailed its pupils’ religious freedom. The case was brought to the court by a Muslim pupil, who argued that the school discriminated against her under the Equality Act 2010 by refusing to allow prayer rituals during school hours. The law, however, disagrees. Following a two-day hearing in January, the judge has now decided that Michaela’s headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh, has every right to ban prayer at her school.
We should all welcome the High Court’s decision. Far from proving that the UK is hostile to faith, it actually shows real religious tolerance in action.
Michaela has an openly secular ethos and treats all its pupils with a radical equality. Everyone is expected to make sacrifices for the good of the school community. Christian families put up with revision classes on Sundays. Pupils who are Jehovah’s Witnesses must study Macbeth alongside other students, even though their faith usually forbids them from reading texts involving magic. At lunchtime, the school canteen serves only vegetarian food, so that pupils of all faiths can eat together. Any suggestion that Michaela had ‘singled out’ Muslims is palpably untrue.
The prayer ban, introduced last March, came in response to growing segregation and tensions at the school. The clearest manifestation of this was when up to 30 Muslim pupils began praying in the school playground during lunchtimes, breaking a school rule against gatherings of more than four students. Some of the more zealous Muslim pupils had also been intimidating their less religious peers. The court heard that one girl was pressured into wearing a headscarf, when she hadn’t worn one before. Another girl stopped singing in the choir because she was told it was ‘haram’.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
