Secular humanists win legal battle to help shape religious education curriculum in Britain

As reported by Gabriella Swerling of the London Daily Telegraph, August 2, 2019:

Humanists are set to help shape religious education curriculum after winning a legal battle to sit on a council’s education board.

Humanists UK, the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people which campaigns for a secular state, has won a proposed legal challenge against a London council that rejected its application to join its religious education body.

The organisation said that the decision is “likely to pave the way for more humanists to sit on such bodies across England”.

Rachel Taggart-Ryan applied for full membership to Greenwich Council’s Standing Advisory Council on RE (SACRE), the body that oversees the religious education curriculum in the local area and which has members from varying religious groups.

However its sitting members voted against giving her full membership and voting rights because she is a humanist, with the Council backing this decision on the grounds that humanism is not a religion.

Their decision came in spite of an identical 2017 legal challenge in Wales which saw that Council back down and decide to admit another humanist, Kathy Riddick, as a full member.

It then prompted the Welsh Government to issue guidance clarifying that human rights law means humanists have the right to be full members, and subsequently decide to change the underlying education law to explicitly reflect the need to treat humanists and humanism equally in religious education. The law in Wales is identical to England.

After being refused by Greenwich Council, Rachel sent a letter before action to them, arguing that she had been discriminated against because she was a humanist. The Council again refused to admit her as a member.

As a result, Humanists UK then instructed solicitors, who notified the Council of their intention to apply to the High Court to take a case. Only then did the Council decided to acknowledge that there is a legal basis on which humanists can be full members of SACREs. Ms Taggart-Ryan, who is the charity’s campaigns officer, has now been admitted as a full member of Greenwich Council’s SACRE.

She said: “I applied to my local SACRE because I believe it’s important that children have the opportunity to learn about a broad range of beliefs in RE including humanism.

“The key way to get involved in this is to join the local SACRE, but I was completely dismayed when the panel rejected my application solely because I am a humanist. This issue is a matter of fairness and equality so I am glad that I now have the right to participate and vote in my SACRE.”

Councillor Jackie Smith, Cabinet Member for Children's Services and Community Safety said: “The Royal Borough of Greenwich has admitted Rachel Taggart-Ryan as a member of its Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education and welcomes her contributions in helping shape the local curriculum for our diverse population”.