I stuck up for students even teachers called ‘satanic’. It cost me my job

When I read this masthead’s story about Charlotte*, who was sacked by a Christian private school after her same-sex relationship was discovered by a parent, the memories came flooding back.

Like Charlotte, I have been personally affected by employment discrimination in a Christian school. In my case, what the school executive apparently could not tolerate was my determination, as a Christian teacher-assistant with both a professional duty of care and a faith-commitment to justice, to safeguard my young students from systematic bullying on the grounds of their sexuality or gender expression, and to ensure that they could have a safe learning environment when they came to school each day.

Illustration: Matt GoldingCredit:

For me, the crisis came as a result of an escalation in inflammatory rhetoric from school leadership during the 2017 marriage equality campaign period, and a concurrent uptick in incidents of peer bullying among students. As the campaign period unfolded, I noticed the sexuality-related bullying incidents in my year 5/6 classroom increase in number and intensity.

The incidents I witnessed included homophobic slurs, graphic drawings depicting physical violence towards LGBTIQA+ people, and religiously worded accusations and threats – for example, that the student being targeted was “demon possessed” and “going to hell because God hated them”. The incidents seriously affected the wellbeing of this student, and I felt that I had no choice but to adopt extra supervision measures to prioritise their safety.

Even though I documented each of these incidents and passed on my reports to the appropriate staff members, the students who were leading the bullying were allowed to continue for some weeks with no meaningful intervention. When they were finally interviewed by the school executive, they defended themselves by saying, “but I was just telling them what the Bible says”.

I could see that the senior staff had no adequate response to this. In fact, it was only when I copied multiple staff members into emails documenting a number of incidents that the bullying behaviour was dealt with at all.

Once my supervising teachers became aware that I was documenting these incidents, my duties were suddenly changed, and I was warned of negative consequences if I  “overstepped my role”.

Up to this point I had gone about my duties with some level of professional independence, but I now began to feel under scrutiny. This made me extra vigilant and anxious about offering emotional and spiritual support to my students who were being bullied in these ways – despite the fact that this support only consisted of simple Christian messages of God’s love, acceptance and inclusion, which in my view any Christian teacher should have been able to articulate unequivocally.

I also began to feel less and less comfortable spending my lunch breaks in the staff room, as other staff regularly expressed attitudes that were strongly negative towards LGBTIQA+ people, often describing them with stigmatising religious language like “satanic” or “demonic”. Having seen the psychological effects of this language on my students, I found it unbearable to listen to, and had to keep away to avoid having panic attacks.

A couple of days before the end of the school year, I was called to the principal’s office and informed that my rolling contract would not be renewed for the following year. I was told that after a review of the school budget, one of the three stage-based teacher-assistant roles unexpectedly had to be axed – despite the fact the entire newly built primary learning environment had been designed in such a way that a learning support teacher-assistant was required full-time in every stage.

I didn’t try to argue or question this decision – it was clear to me by this point that I had no future in the school, despite my dedication to my work and to my students. Instead, I prioritised doing what I could to ensure my students’ safety after I was gone.

Experiences like mine and Charlotte’s are not isolated incidents – they are part of a pattern in which legitimated discrimination, via religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws, has emboldened religious schools lobby groups like Christian Schools Australia to vehemently oppose the introduction of legislative changes which would protect their students.

Given this climate across the Christian schools sector, it’s difficult enough for us as teachers to speak out about how we’ve been treated. For students in these schools, it’s almost impossible. In addition to being badly traumatised by what they’ve been through, many young people in religious settings who are just becoming aware of their sexuality or gender identity may feel that they have nobody safe to disclose to – especially if, as for many of them, their whole families are enmeshed in faith communities in which there may be a level of fear around acknowledging difference.

LGBTIQA+ kids are born into religious families at the same rate as they are born into non-religious families; they will continue to be born, grow up, and become aware of their sexuality or gender identity, regardless of what school they attend or what beliefs their faith community holds.

Knowing this, I am committed to continuing to advocate for the potentially life-saving law reforms that these children desperately need. We must hold Prime Minister Albanese, Attorney-General Dreyfus, and the ALP to their election commitment to remove the exceptions for religious schools under our federal laws. And we must call urgently on all of our federal parliamentarians to support these reforms. The safety of all children in all schools should never be a partisan issue.

Elise Christian is a former primary school teacher who is currently studying postgraduate theology.

*Name changed to protect identity.