Muslim teacher fired after 9/11 video objection wins case

A Muslim teaching assistant who was fired for questioning whether 11-year-old pupils with special needs should be shown striking footage of the 9/11 attacks has won her case after it was found that she was unfairly dismissed from her school.

Suriyah Bi, a 25-year-old from Birmingham, was fired from the city's Heartlands Academy after she was accused of being "offended" at the video "because she was Muslim".

On 22 September 2015, a class of year seven pupils with special needs had been studying Simon Armitage's poem Out of the Blue, which was written for the fifth anniversary of 9/11.

Bi said the class teacher taking the lesson had to log in to her personal YouTube account to bypass a warning that the video was unsuitable for anyone under the age of 18. The children saw the warning and then began to ask whether the teacher should be allowing them to watch the video.

The teacher told the students to be quiet and proceeded to play the video. Bi, witnessing the incident, flagged up the incident to the school. She was dismissed just over an hour later, less than two weeks after she had started working at the school.

According to The Guardian, a safeguarding checklist written three days after Bi’s dismissal says that she was head girl at Saltley School, which was associated with the Trojan Horse affair five years after she left.

The checklist had also mentioned that she had completed a dissertation looking at the effect of the scandal on pupils. It also accused her of being upset about the video because she was a Muslim.

Bi rejected an offer of £11,000 in compensation for loss of earnings after her dismissal and instead took the case to an employment tribunal.

In March, a judge rejected a claim that she was discriminated against on Islamophobic grounds, but she won her claim of unfair dismissal due to whistleblowing.

She has continued to insist that her being Muslim played a role in the way she was unfairly dismissed and has applied for her claims of discrimination to be reconsidered.

In a hearing last month, it was ruled that Bi had also been victimised under the 2010 Equality Act.

She says she is willing to reach a settlement with the school and an expected hearing is due to take place in 2018.