The government threatens to close a religious school if it doesn’t teach progressive dogma on sexual ethics.
An English private school for Orthodox Jewish girls aged three to eight is facing closure because it does not teach its students about gender reassignment or homosexuality.
The United Kingdom’s Office of Standards in Education has cited Vishnitz Girls School three times and will not relent in its application of the 2010 Equalities Act. If enforced broadly, the government’s actions would effectively prevent religious families from educating their children in accordance with their faith.
The act states that “the responsible body of such a school must not discriminate against a pupil . . . in the way it provides education.” With that passed into law, it took only a hop, skip, and a jump in logic for British bureaucrats and inspectors to force prepubescent girls to learn about sexual orientation. And if that violates the teachings of their faith, the bureaucrats maintain, the faith shall have to change. If it won’t, the kids will have to lose their school. This, we are told, is what justice looks like.
The inspectors spin a fantastic tale. While they acknowledge that the pupils are “well-motivated, have positive attitudes to learning and are confident in thinking for themselves,” and that the teachers’ “good subject knowledge and high-quality classroom resources inspire pupils with enthusiasm for learning,” the inspectors maintain that the school is inadequate.
Even though it appears to excel at teaching secular subjects — a challenge for many Orthodox schools — the school does not “teach explicitly about issues such as sexual orientation” and thereby “restricts pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and does not promote equality of opportunity in ways that take account of differing lifestyles.” Consequently, the inspectors conclude, “pupils are not able to gain a full understanding of fundamental British values.” It is important to remember that they are writing about girls under the age of eight.
This is nothing short of the imposition of secular dogma. The government’s arrogance is astounding; how exactly do they presume to know what is necessary for the “spiritual” and “moral” development of these Orthodox Jewish girls? In that realm, bureaucrats are simply out of their depth and unfit to dictate rules to parents who know well enough how to raise their own children. Indeed, why should we presume that the bureaucrats’ fashionable dogmas about “lifestyles” are any wiser than the dogmas of the rabbinic or Christian traditions?
Orthodox Jewish children will be fine, productive members of society even if they do not approve of gender reassignment.
Simply put, religious liberty is an empty promise if it does not extend to the education of children. That is the issue here. Orthodox Jewish children will be fine, productive members of society even if they do not approve of gender reassignment. Far more important than crushing all dissent on issues of sexuality and gender is preserving the bedrock right to peaceably express one’s religion. Is this any less of a “fundamental British value” than teaching about gender reassignment to prepubescent children?
The inspectors follow a speech by Amanda Spielman, the head of the Office of Standards in Education. Placing our current situation in the context of the Westminster, London Bridge, Manchester, and Finsbury Park terror attacks, she emphasizes the need for “young people [to] have the knowledge and resilience they need to resist extremism.” I would not disagree, but in classic bureaucratic, politically correct fashion, her agency proceeds to accomplish that end by teaching seven-year-old girls about sexuality.
Spokesmen for the Office of Standards in Education have released specious statements about the Jewish school. One said, “The law expects schools to demonstrate that they are encouraging pupils to take a respectful and tolerant stance towards those who hold values different from their own.” But surely the spokesman should be telling that to his own agency.
Where is their respect for “those who hold values different from their own?” After all, it is the government that is expressing its intolerance of a different “lifestyle.” It wants traditional communities to adopt its own lifestyle and is willing to coerce them into doing so and to shut down their schools if they don’t.
“Children in England deserve the best,” said the government spokesman. He’s right. They should be allowed to learn in accordance with their faiths.
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