London Teacher Who Denounced Jews as Star Trek Vulcans is Sacked

A London primary school teacher who was sacked over allegations of anti-Semitic abuse has lost his attempt to argue that his views were a "philosophical belief" covered under the Equality Act.

The teacher, name only as Mr Arya, was sacked from job for pushing and shouting at a child, sending anti-Semitic abuse to a fellow teacher via text and email and making sexist and racist comments about colleagues in letters to the National Union of Teachers.

He also compared Jews with Vulcans, the aliens in Star Trek.

Ayra claimed he was discriminated against by his former employer, the London Borough of Waltham Forest, because of his philosophical belief that "the Jewish religion's professed belief in Jews being 'God's chosen people' is at odds with a meritocratic and multicultural society".

Arya insisted he was not anti-Semitic, but believed there was a "vastly disproportionate" emphasis in Western culture on the suffering and history of Jews, and that Western politics and media were heavily influenced by a Jewish lobby.

"The Jewish situation has been institutionalised to serve as a convenient profiteering racket by third and fourth generations of Jews," he added.

XPertHR, a company that deals with employment law, wrote a detailed report on the case that also showed how he referred to Star Trek to draw an analogy between the Vulcan race and Jewish people.

The tribunal concluded that while Arya does "genuinely held" these beliefs, they do not meet the requirement under the Equality Act 2010. A belief must "be worthy of respect in a democratic society and not incompatible with human dignity and/or conflict with the fundamental rights of others".

"[The decision should] reassure employers that outrageous or offensive views are unlikely to be protected by equality legislation, because the open expression of these views would in turn discriminate against others".