After a six-year battle, Kristie Higgs has finally been vindicated. The Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of the 49-year-old school administrator, who was dismissed in 2019 from Farmor’s School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, for expressing traditional Christian views about marriage and sexuality on her personal Facebook account.
The Free Speech Union (FSU) intervened in the case and successfully persuaded the Court to adopt several key arguments, reinforcing vital protections for freedom of belief in the workplace.
Higgs v Farmor’s School is arguably the most significant belief discrimination ruling since Maya Forstater’s victory at the Employment Appeal Tribunal, providing authoritative guidance on how religious and philosophical beliefs should be safeguarded at work.
Beyond its immediate outcome, the case marks a pivotal moment in the debate over how employers handle third-party complaints about lawful speech. The Court’s ruling makes clear that individuals cannot be dismissed simply because others take offence at their views, setting an important precedent against employers outsourcing disciplinary decisions to ideologically driven woke activists.
Higgs’ case began in October 2018 when a parent at Farmor’s School complained about “prejudiced” posts on her Facebook page.
These posts, which critiqued the introduction of LGBT-inclusive education in primary schools, included statements warning of “indoctrination” and “brainwashing” of children to believe “that same sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage, and that gender is a matter of choice, not biology, so that it’s up to them what sex they are”.
While these words were not her own, she amplified them with urgent calls to action, stating “PLEASE READ THIS! THEY ARE BRAINWASHING OUR CHILDREN!” and closed with “***Please sign this petition, they have already started to brainwash our innocent wonderfully created children and its happening in our local primary school now***”.
Her association with these posts became the basis of an internal investigation at the school. Though she used her maiden name on Facebook and did not identify her employer, the school determined that her views could damage its reputation. According to her lawyers, she was subjected to a long interrogation during which her Christian views “were described as akin to that of a pro-Nazi right-wing extremist”.
She was subsequently dismissed for bringing the school into disrepute, setting the stage for a protracted legal battle. Higgs argued that she was discriminated against because of her Christian beliefs. The school countered that she was not dismissed for her beliefs per se but for the way she expressed them – an argument that would later be scrutinised in court.
Higgs’ case exemplifies a growing trend in employment disputes, where individuals find themselves dismissed not for their beliefs but for how those beliefs are perceived by third parties. Increasingly, employers cite “reputational damage” as a justification for taking action against employees who express views that some find controversial.
At the first stage of the legal process, the Employment Tribunal (ET) ruled against Higgs. While it accepted that her religious beliefs were protected under the Equality Act 2010, it held that her dismissal was lawful because of how her views might be perceived. This reasoning introduced a problematic distinction: Higgs was not sacked because of her beliefs, but because she was perceived to hold “unacceptable” views. In other words, an employer could justify dismissal based not on what an employee actually said, but on what others assumed or misinterpreted about their views.
This interpretation raised a fundamental legal question: Can an employer dismiss an employee simply because third parties object to their lawful beliefs?
Having allowed Higgs to appeal, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) found that the ET had erred in key ways, particularly in failing to ask whether her Facebook posts were a manifestation of her beliefs.
UK law recognises that religious and philosophical beliefs include not just private convictions but also the right to express them. As the EAT noted, the manifestation of belief is often inseparable from the belief itself. The Lord’s Prayer, for instance, is a direct manifestation of Christianity. Punishing an employee for saying it would be tantamount to penalising them for being Christian.
The EAT also ruled that the Tribunal had failed to consider whether the school’s concerns about reputational harm were well-founded. Employers cannot rely on vague concerns about offence; there must be demonstrable evidence of actual harm.
Despite these positive developments, the EAT declined to make a final ruling, instead sending Higgs’ case back to the Tribunal for reconsideration. This left unresolved the central issue: whether her dismissal had been lawful.
At this stage, Higgs appealed to the Court of Appeal, joined by the FSU as an intervener. In a significant ruling, the Court has now found in favour of both Higgs and the FSU’s key submissions. The FSU’s intervention played a crucial role in shaping the Court’s approach to key legal questions, ensuring that the principles underpinning freedom of belief and expression were rigorously examined. A panel of three senior judges concluded unanimously that her sacking was “unquestionably a disproportionate response” and that the Facebook posts Higgs shared were not grossly offensive.
Remittal to the Employment Tribunal was deemed unnecessary (except for determination of remedy), as the Court concluded that “the ET would be bound to find that the Claimant’s dismissal was not objectively justified and accordingly that it constituted unlawful discrimination”. Her posts were not objectionable in the legal sense – they were neither grossly offensive nor “primarily intended to incite hatred or disgust for homosexuals or trans people”.
The ruling reinforces a vital principle: employees do not forfeit their right to lawful expression simply because others find their views controversial. It also establishes an important precedent: employers must ensure that any dismissal related to belief expression is based on objective and proportionate grounds rather than subjective reactions.
In reaching its decision, the Court of Appeal relied on the precedent set in Page v NHS Trust Development, which established that dismissal for expressing a belief is only lawful if the manifestation of that belief is objectively objectionable and the employer’s response is proportionate. This means employers must assess what was actually said rather than relying on how third parties may misinterpret or subjectively perceive an employee’s views. Higgs’ case confirms that reputational concerns cannot be based on vague fears of controversy or activist pressure but must be grounded in demonstrable harm.
Accordingly, tribunals must assess an employee’s statements based on their actual meaning, not on subjective interpretations, third-party complaints, or activist-led mischaracterisations. On this point, the Court endorsed the reasoning of Lady Justice Laing, who, in granting Higgs permission to appeal, stated:
“Where the objection is based on the words used by the employee, it is arguable that the defence should only be available if, objectively, the employer can legitimately complain about the meaning of those words, and that it should not be available because of the reaction to those words of a person which derives, not from the objective meaning of the words, but from subjective inferences some people might draw, or which the complainant has drawn, from those words.”
The ruling therefore provides a significant safeguard against the growing tendency of employers to treat mere controversy as evidence of wrongdoing, rather than conducting a measured, objective assessment of what was actually said and whether it was legally objectionable.
Another vital point advanced by the FSU, and endorsed by the Court, concerned the question of reputational damage.
The ruling makes it clear that an employer cannot simply claim that an employee’s speech has caused harm to its reputation without providing concrete evidence. It is no longer sufficient for an organisation to justify disciplinary action based on vague assertions of potential controversy or hypothetical public backlash. Instead, there must be a direct and measurable impact – such as a demonstrable loss of clients, funding, or operational functionality – before reputational harm can be considered a valid concern. On this basis, the Court determined that any alleged risk to the school’s reputation from Higgs’ Facebook posts was “speculative at best”.
Needless to say, this is a major correction to the overly broad way in which reputational risk has often been weaponised against employees with lawful but dissenting views.
Finally, the ruling reinforced a high threshold for when speech can justify dismissal. Robust, forthright, or even unpopular views do not, in themselves, constitute grounds for termination. The Court confirmed that, for speech to fall outside legal protection, it must be grossly offensive or amount to a direct attack on a specific group. This is a critical clarification, given the growing tendency to conflate legitimate expressions of belief with “hate speech” based purely on perceived offensiveness. The judgment draws a clear legal line, reaffirming that the law does not – and should not – treat lawful but controversial opinions as inherently objectionable.
Taken together, these clarifications represent a significant victory for those who value free speech and intellectual diversity in the workplace. The ruling establishes a more objective, evidence-based framework for handling belief discrimination cases and makes it harder for employers to act as enforcers of ideological conformity at the expense of fundamental rights.
While the legal battle may not be over – an appeal to the Supreme Court remains possible – this ruling provides an essential layer of protection for those who dare to express unorthodox views in the workplace. In an era where ideological conformity is increasingly demanded in professional settings, Higgs v Farmor’s School stands as a vital reaffirmation of the right to speak freely.
Read the judgment here.
