Teachers Gagged: The Consequences of Suppressing Educators’ Voices.

Dame Sara Khan’s independent review has recommended a government implementation of a no-protest exclusion zone within a 150-metre radius of schools. The policy aims to end the era of fear-mongering teachers in our schools. But it threatens free speech and the right to protest for parents and individuals.

Years of Tory rule have chipped away at protester’s rights, and the current government struggles to balance citizen rights with the needs of hyper-sensitive schools in multicultural Britain. The silencing of teachers and their freedom of expression is no doubt an important issue that needs to be addressed. The 2021 Batley grammar school incident became synonymous with a repressive hyper-sensitivity which is pervasive within the British schooling system.

Imagine this: an enraged mob forces someone into hiding with threats and blasphemy accusations. You might think this is a scene from a foreign country or a movie, but it happened in Yorkshire. The target? A teacher. The mob? Mostly local parents.

The incident involved a religious education teacher, whose identity is still anonymous, wrongfully suspended for showing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed to his students. The teacher was suspended from the grammar school, receiving death threats from parents and the local religious community, who claimed that the incident was a breach of safeguards by the teacher. It’s clear that the handling of this incident was wrong, and its repercussions persist. Sparking Khan’s review and recommendations.

The independent review appears to aim at curbing protests and threats against teachers. While the intention is commendable, the policy itself raises concerns.

We must view it within its context. We must preserve free speech in the UK. The policy implementation protects the free speech of one party but curtails the free speech of the majority. This is not an isolated case. The government has already faced criticism for its approach to protesters’ rights. Powerful protests have taken hold across the UK in recent years including; Just Stop Oil, Black Lives Matter, Pro-Palestine marches and the Sarah Everard vigil’s. These movements have provoked action from the government with new extreme public order powers announced in April 2024 that will allow police to intervene even before individuals begin to protest, by preventing them from being in a specific area or from using the internet to encourage protest-related offences.

The government must be careful to retain any kind of legitimacy or popularity they have left. Even the most loyal Tory supporters must acknowledge that the government’s approach to protesters has been extreme, verging on infringing fundamental freedoms.