Irish schoolteacher Enoch Burke has been ordered to pay costs to Wilson’s Hospital Secondary School after the High Court determined that the school was within its rights to put him on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of a disciplinary process against him.
Burke was famously suspended from his post by his employer for disruptive behaviour following an instruction from the Principal of the school to address a pupil by the pronouns “them/they”.
Burke objected to this instruction on the grounds of religious freedom.
Since that time, he has lost his job and been incarcerated for contempt of court for 108 days after refusing to commit to not abiding by his suspension and attending his place of work.
After this, his punishment changed from jail time to a fine of €700 per day, effective since January until school closed for summer holidays. This amounted to approximately €50,000 in fines.
In May 2023 High Court Judge Alexander Owens awarded damages of €15,000 to the school for Burke’s trespass on the school grounds while suspended and dismissed, and more recently determined that Burke must pay the legal costs of the school as well – potentially approaching six-figures.
“The normal rule is that the costs follow the event. There has to be exceptional reasons to depart from that,” the judge said, unpersuaded by Burke’s arguments (Burke was representing himself) that the initial trial was one-sided.
Burke reiterated his unchanging position that the case was about religious belief and freedom of conscience. He told the judge he had “exalted religious belief to the most serious of crimes” when he issued his original judgement against Burke.
“These proceedings have been initiated against me because I took a stand on my religious belief, I stand by my actions in speaking up, and for the court to now ask me to pay something is punishing me for that religious belief.”
While the judge refused to get drawn into this discussion, the matter of whether the school was acting within its rights when Burke was compelled to refer to the student by preferred pronouns that are at odds with their biological sex has yet to be answered.
Whether religious belief ought to trump or submit to preferred gender identity is also an outstanding question which is central to the case.
Supporters of the school, and some sympathetic to Burke, argue, as the judge has, that the issue in question in simply Burke’s behaviour that led to his suspension and dismissal, as well as the behaviour that led to him being deemed in contempt of court.
The same argument is made that Burke’s engagement in court, which Judge Owens most recently considered “not to persuade but simply to harangue”, has contributed to him losing each case that has arisen in the process, and ultimately contributed to the underlying – substantive – issue remaining unaddressed in the courts.
As it stands, no one knows whether the School acted within its rights in instructing Burke to speak in a particular way, or whether Burke was right in complaining that it was an illegitimate demand.
There are other complications in the case, such as whether the student’s parents were informed of their request, or whether the instruction from the school was more of a request – but the primary issue remains unanswered.
As it stands, until the substantive issue is addressed, it may be a case that Burke has spent more than three months in prison and been driven to bankruptcy for not agreeing to submit to an illegitimate request that trampled on his religious beliefs.
For other teachers, the chilling effect is to warn them that they need to comply or submit to being placed on administrative leave, in the event of a similar request.
Schools and teachers, as well as parents and students, are forced to make decisions in the absence of guidance from the State.
The result is not just uncertainty for teachers as to what their rights are, but uncertainty for schools as to what is the best response for students who are identifying as gender non-conforming.
Debbie Hayton, writing in the Spectator, comments on the delays in the Department of Education in issuing guidance on transgenderism in schools.
The result of the absence of any guidance is highlighted in the Policy Exchange report earlier this year: Asleep at the Wheel, An examination of Gender and Safeguarding in Schools.
The report shows that while many schools were “asleep at the wheel”, failing to inform parents (as seems to be the case in Wilson’s Hospital School), others were actively getting ahead of the law, taking advice from activist organisations such as Stonewall or Mermaids, and sometimes stepping outside the law, for example, by removing single sex toilets.
In Ireland, there is no such guidance being prepared, let alone any official discussion about such guidance. The dangers and risks of gender affirmation in teens, with or without parental consent, is a subject that officials in Ireland does not wish to discuss.
Reports such as that by Dr Hilary Cass, investigations such as Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children by Hannah Barnes, analysis by Irish author Helen Joyce in Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality seem to be on the index of forbidden books, receiving little coverage or none.
Meanwhile, the Department of Education continues apace with reform of the Social Personal and Health Education Curriculum (SPHE), which includes Relationship & Sexuality Education, the draft for senior cycle which Iona Institute Director, David Quinn, described as “like something dreamt up by the most radical US sociology departments”.
The draft curriculum, with an outsized focus on “gender studies’” supported by “learning” materials from activists groups, all but endorses a gender affirmative approach, absent of any guidance on the real and potentially negative consequences, or any clarity for teachers, schools or students on the issue Enoch Burke lost his job over.