Rushdie-ing to judgement

A Muslim teacher has lost a discrimination case after alleging “Islamophobia” at her school, and claiming she was harassed when colleagues discussed The Satanic Verses in front of her. The case, heard at an employment tribunal in July, offers a sobering glimpse of how workplace speech norms could shift as the government considers adopting a formal, non-statutory definition of the term.

Rabia Ihsan, a biology teacher of Pakistani heritage, told the tribunal she had experienced religious harassment when a colleague mentioned the novel by Sir Salman Rushdie.

The exchange took place in the staffroom, during a conversation between Ms Ihsan and two colleagues, Laura Gardiner and Mairi Lagan. Ms Gardiner had asked for audiobook recommendations, and Ms Lagan replied that she had downloaded a sample of The Satanic Verses following the recent knife attack on Rushdie, but had not read beyond the sample.

Ms Ihsan interjected to say the novel was “offensive to Islam”, at which point the subject was dropped. She later included the incident in a formal grievance, describing it as “an attempt to provoke me, incite hatred and create a hostile environment”.

“Offensive to Islam”? It would certainly be true to say The Satanic Verses — a piece of literature, lest we forget — has mortally offended some Muslims. Rushdie’s biography — indeed, his body — bears the scars inflicted by all those hurt feelings. In August 2022, he was stabbed repeatedly by Islamist sympathiser Hadi Matar at a literary event in New York, leaving him blind in one eye and with a paralysed hand. It was merely the latest in a long line of attempts to silence an author whose work has long attracted violent opposition.  

Following the novel’s publication in 1988, its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad was swiftly denounced by hardline clerics and community leaders around the world — most of whom, like Mr Matar, had not actually read the offending sequence of prose. Demonstrations, book burnings and effigy hangings followed. Eventually, the agitation caught the attention of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, who in 1989 issued a fatwa sentencing Rushdie to death and extending the threat to anyone involved in the book’s publication. Iranian institutions later offered a reward of up to $3 million for his assassination.

Responding to Ms Ihsan’s claim that mere mention of the book had created a hostile environment, Judge Muriel Robison concluded the conversation was neither targeted nor malicious. “Even if it could be said that raising this matter was unwarranted conduct related to religion which made the claimant feel uncomfortable,” she wrote, “it was not reasonable for her to conclude that it had the proscribed effect [of harassment], particularly when the subject was dropped when she raised her concerns.”

The right decision, of course. But was it really only the willingness of her colleagues to immediately drop the subject that insulated the school from legal liability? It is perhaps a sign of just how fully the logic of deference equals decency has been internalised within our institutions that talking — politely, spontaneously, in a staffroom — about a novel that won the Whitbread Book of the Year might have constituted harassment.

A month earlier, in September 2022, Ms Ihsan had been “very upset” after staff in the science department discarded a creationist book challenging the theory of evolution. The book, which bore Arabic script and the holy seal of the Prophet Muhammad on its cover, was removed after teachers discovered it contained a picture of Adolf Hitler and that its author had been convicted of serious sexual offences against children.

Ms Ihsan had not been present when the decision was made, but later told colleagues the book’s destruction had caused her distress due to the presence of the holy seal, an Islamic religious symbol.

In a subsequent grievance, she alleged her colleagues’ behaviour amounted to “covert Islamophobia” and described it as “a series of microaggressions”. The teacher who discarded the book, she claimed, had “displayed aggression towards my protected characteristics and beliefs through expressing statements and destroying a book on Creationist beliefs and evolution”.

The panel expressed “concern” that the book had been destroyed, but accepted that the teacher involved had acted out of “genuine concerns”, citing both its content and the author’s criminal history. “To emphasise,” Judge Robison wrote, “we accept that none of this was directed at the claimant, and nothing was said or done ‘because of’ the claimant’s religion.”

These were just two of 81 alleged detriments listed in the final schedule of issues, a lengthy document that underpinned Ms Ihsan’s claims of direct discrimination on grounds of race and religion. Other notable allegations included that one colleague would say “good morning” to her in a “very firm, very assertive” manner — conduct she described as a form of microaggression — and that another, when asked why he hadn’t informed her that her food had spilled over in the microwave, responded jokingly: “What did your last slave die of?”

Ms Ihsan began working at the school in 2010. In 2021, she enrolled on an Education Scotland course called Building Racial Literacy, which encouraged participants to embed critical race theory inspired “anti-racism” and “decoloniality” into the curriculum. As part of the course, she developed an action plan — approved by the head teacher and shared with Education Scotland — and began promoting initiatives framed in that vocabulary.

One such initiative was an “Islamophobic awareness” programme. In November 2022, she and her trade union representative, Claire McInnes, also proposed inviting the group Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) to visit the school and deliver a presentation on Islamophobia.

An interesting choice, given that concerns about MEND’s approach had been raised long before. In 2018, then Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Mark Rowley — now Commissioner — named the group as one that fosters “grievances and isolation”, and highlighted a former senior figure who lost a libel case after being labelled a “hard-line Islamic extremist”. More recently, in April 2024, Communities Secretary Michael Gove named MEND in Parliament as one of three organisations to be reassessed under the previous Conservative government’s revised definition of extremism, citing their “Islamist orientation and views”.

In August 2023, Ms Ihsan went on long-term sick leave citing work-related stress. She resigned the following March while grievance proceedings were still ongoing. Her claims of direct and indirect discrimination, harassment on grounds of race, religion and sex, and constructive unfair dismissal were all dismissed.

The case comes as the Labour government considers adopting a non-statutory definition of “Islamophobia”. Although ministers insist any definition will respect freedom of expression, the 2018 All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) version serves as a cautionary tale.

It effectively blurs the line between criticism of religious beliefs and racial discrimination

Despite never being endorsed by central government, it was swiftly adopted by more than 50 local authorities, as well as by the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats and Scottish Conservatives and many universities. Because the APPG defines Islamophobia as “a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”, it effectively blurs the line between criticism of religious beliefs and racial discrimination.

In practice, and unsurprisingly, this has led to individuals being investigated, disciplined or marginalised for otherwise lawful speech. If the government endorses a similar framework, even without giving it statutory force, it will inevitably filter down into workplace codes of practice, particularly in public bodies, and risk turning casual conversations, like the one that triggered this case, into grounds for formal grievance.