Posted: June 2010

In case there’s anyone on the planet who’s wondering what became of Nicholas Kafouris’s employment tribunal I thought I’d post up this (seeing how the press has lost interest).

  When the tribunal began in February there was a lot of interest as newspaper hacks picked up the sweet scent of ‘political correctness gone mad’ meets 'race-equality double standards'.   The Daily Mail’s headline “Christian teacher ‘forced out’ after complaining Muslim pupils praised 9/11 hijackers ‘as heroes’” summed up the press interest also shared by The Sun and the Daily Express, the East London Advertiser and The Jewish Chronicle.   Day 1 of the hearing saw a gaggle of reporters, notebooks and pencil’s scribbling every detail. By day 2 they had their story.  Now, over three months later, with the judgement finally issued, they’re long gone – no one really cares how it ended.

So – here’s the news - Nicholas Kafouris lost.  His claim of racial and religious discrimination and victimisation was dismissed.  It’s quite sad.  In many ways the 51-year-old support teacher looked like a defeated man even before the hearing began. And, as he gave his testimony, he seemed genuinely wounded by the “vile racism” of 8 and 9 year old Asian children in his class.  Among their comments had been phrases like “we hate the Jews” and “don’t touch me you’re a Christian”.    True, we might once have hoped for a little more adult resilience from our teachers but today its different. Today the wounded are revered and victimhood is a noble status to claim.  But 8 and 9 year olds! Oh well… 

We shouldn’t be surprised.   A racist incident is defined as,‘ any incident perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person’.  In schools, if anyone perceives a comment to be ‘racism’ then it must be regarded as such, and dealt with according to a set procedure. And so Kafouris became a victim twice over – a victim of ‘racist kids’ and a victim of his schools failure to follow the correct procedure on dealing with racist incidents – something Kafouris expected to be carried out to the letter. Jill Hankey, the then head teacher of Bigland Green Primary School in east London, admitted to the tribunal that she should have brought Kafouris and the offending child together at a meeting.  Here the child is supposed to formally apologise – as stipulated in local authority guidelines.  It appears Ms Hankey took the view that younger children don’t understand concepts like racism and their utterances should not be taken as seriously.  Quoted in one press report she says, “it’s the understanding. They have to be treated differently as a nine-year-old than if a 15-year-old had said it”.  Despite Ms Hankey’s lapse into the realm of common sense, Kafouris seems to have been far more conversant with official guidelines. At every level these continually echo the Macpherson Inquiry recommendations which call for “education and example at the youngest age, and an overall attitude of zero-tolerance…”.  Niether age or intent have any particular relevance because it is the perception of the victim which takes precidence.

As the relationship with his head teacher deteriorated, Kafouris began to regard almost every altercation as evidence that he was being discriminated against. For Kafouris, his grievance not only didn’t matter to his employer but they now wanted rid of him.  But even if this were true, after a long period absent from work, he was never going to prove this as the reason for his eventual dismissal.

The real significance of the Kafouris case is that it issues a clear warning of trouble ahead. In a climate of hypersensitivity, policies steeped in the pretence that they exist to resolve conflict, do the exact reverse.  As my report demonstrates, local authorities actively encourage schools to identify and report ‘racist incidents’.  Moreover, the notion that children (including infants) are ‘at risk’ of becoming either victims or perpetrators of racism drives this policy along.  If ‘being seen’ to be rigidly anti-racist is sometimes neglected by a school’s head teacher (as in this case) its becoming more and more likely that a teacher (or perhaps a pupil or a parent) will be on-hand to demand action.  With new anti ‘prejudice related’ bullying duties about to take effect (despite a hold-up), school-life is in danger of becoming swallowed-up by competing grievances and the laborious activity of recording, reporting and arbitrating them.  In this atmosphere teachers and children cease to be resilient and therefore willing to work out conflicts informally. Instead all parties look to the higher authority of government guidelines to sort things out – problem is, the guidelines don’t work (they only make things worse).