A teacher has brought a High Court challenge [1] to a disciplinary process over social media posts expressing traditional views on social issues such as the importance of having a mother and father.
His posts expressed his personal views on the treatment of women under Islam, the need for a mother and father, the binary distinction of male and female, and transgender issues.
Between 2015 and 2016, he was subject to almost daily complaints to his then employer, Dublin ETB, even though he did not mention the college in his posts, or express his views in the classroom.
He said he was wrongly denounced in his former workplace as a ‘homophobe’ ‘racist’ and ‘Islamophobe’ and was subjected to false accusations.
He claims that in late 2017 he was the subject of bullying claims by the school which he denied and which he said were an attempt to punish him by those persons who had complained about his posts.
The ETB ruled against him on the bullying claims and lodged a further complaint against him to the Teaching Council based on his social media postings.
That complaint alleged that Mr Johnson did not appear to be committed to ‘equality’ and ‘inclusion’ or respect diversity arising from gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and other grounds.
Justice Anthony Barr granted Mr Johnson leave to take his case which will now return to the High Court in October.