Extremists on both sides are exploiting the Batley school row

The writer, a former head of the Downing Street policy unit, is a Harvard senior fellow

When President Emmanuel Macron of France lauded Samuel Paty, the teacher murdered last year after showing pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, some teachers retorted that they could do with more than just warm words from the state when it came to teaching free speech. “#NousSommesChoyés” some tweeted sarcastically after Jean Castex, Macron’s prime minister, said the French education system was “choyée” — cherished.

In France, teachers have found themselves on the frontline of the country’s fight for secular values. This is not just about the extreme example of showing an image that much of Islam interprets as being proscribed by the Koran, and that large numbers of Muslims find deeply offensive. A recent survey indicated that nearly half of French secondary schoolteachers avoid or downplay subjects that they fear might upset pupils, including sexuality, the Holocaust and evolution.

The UK has generally prided itself on better handling of cultural sensitivities, and not pushing minorities into desperate banlieues. But the protests and death threats in West Yorkshire, against a teacher at Batley Grammar School who allegedly showed pupils a cartoon of the prophet, raise uncomfortable questions for Britain, too.

We don’t know exactly what happened: the lesson was apparently a religious studies session on blasphemy, and an independent investigation is under way. But the teacher has gone into hiding in fear of his life, after being named on social media by protest organisers and a local charity, Purpose For Life. The school has not simply apologised, but also promised to review the religious studies curriculum “to ensure no other resource or statement is inappropriate”.

It is one thing to listen to genuinely aggrieved parents. It is another to rush into pledging censorship. A petition in support of the suspended teacher, apparently started by pupils, has attracted tens of thousands of signatures. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Taj Hargey, a progressive South African-born Oxford imam, have defended the teacher’s right to free speech. The National Education Union told me that it is “fully supporting its members at Batley Grammar School” but would not say what, if anything, it is doing to support the teacher.

Religious education, like sex education, is a minefield. Both are vigorously contested by conservative parents of various faiths. Officially compulsory, both contain some opt-outs. This dismays some headteachers, who tell me it hampers their attempts to broaden pupils’ horizons and improve their career prospects by teaching them about other faiths and to think critically.

The Muslim news site 5Pillars, cited by Policy Exchange, a think-tank, gave an insight into what the teacher might have been trying to do. It said he gave some background to what happened when Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, published the cartoon, and “asked who was to blame — the cartoonist for drawing, publishing it and causing offence, or the person who killed the French teacher for showing it?”

That question was surely a legitimate one for him to pose, although it might not have been essential to actually show the cartoon (if he did). The deeper issue is how many parents would regard the debate itself as unacceptable, even without the image. Mohammad Sajad Hussain, the founder of Purpose for Life, has said the teacher’s behaviour was “sadistic” and that “we can’t use the expression, freedom of speech, to offend people”. But freedom of speech is more than an expression. It is a value. How should the establishment respond to people who find the debate itself offensive?

Gavin Williamson, education secretary, has condemned the protests, and Sajid Javid, a former chancellor, has said the teacher “should not be intimidated in any way”. But statements made at high altitude also need to translate into action on the ground.

For years, the state has sent mixed messages. In Birmingham, a teacher developed a programme called “No Outsiders” on the theme of inclusion. Initially praised by the Department for Education, it met a storm of protest from parents who disliked its promotion of LBGT to young children, including a tale of two male penguins raising a chick. Whitehall changed its tune, and was accused by the head of the local school trust of putting “extreme pressure” on teachers to stop the lessons.

Are you under 35? Which issues concern you most?

We want to hear from readers aged between 16 and 35 on what life is like, and which problems need fixing most urgently. Housing? Education? Jobs? Pensions? The environment? Tell us about your experiences via a short survey.

I wouldn’t mind if ministers had come to the view that very young children should not be taught about sexuality. Instead, they gave teachers the impression that they wouldn’t be supported if they ran into trouble for following the curriculum. Ironically, “No Outsiders” was a response to government demands that schools teach British values after the “Trojan Horse” events of 2014, in which some Birmingham teachers were bullied out of their jobs and abandoned by both government and the council.

Batley, the former constituency of Jo Cox, the Labour MP murdered in 2016 by a far-right extremist, is a potential tinder box. Baroness Sayeeda Warsi has rightly warned the row risks being “hijacked by extremists on both sides”.

Arguably, the calmest note has been struck not by the panicked elite, but by the Batley petition. “The teacher was trying to educate students about racism and blasphemy,” it states. “He is not racist and did not support the Islamophobic cartoons in any manner.”

A multicultural society must tread carefully with regard to people’s beliefs. But it must not let the self-righteous become the thought police.