British Education Secretary Says White Privilege Is Not a ‘Fact’

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan arrives in Downing Street, London, ahead of the first Cabinet meeting with Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister, on Oct. 26, 2022. PA Media

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has said she does not believe white privilege is “a fact,” arguing that it should not be taught as such in schools.

The Cabinet minister said the topic had been part of a debate about what children should be taught in school.

Keegan told LBC radio on Thursday, “We’ve basically said, ‘look, here’s what we should be teaching, we should have balanced debate.'”

“There is a lot of debate in the country, we should be able to have those debates. We should be able to have those open discussions, but you shouldn’t be teaching things as fact that are debates.”

Asked whether “white privilege” was a fact, Keegan said, “I mean, I don’t think it’s a fact. I don’t, for me, think that there is a privilege to being white on its own, no.”

‘Critical Social Justice Theories’

Keegan’s comments follow her first appearance before the Education Committee on Wednesday at a hearing about teaching critical race theory, religious, health, and sex education in schools.

Keegan has previously stated that she believes “trans women are women.”

Conservative MP Miriam Cates presented Keegan with research from professor Eric Kaufmann, a leading researcher into cancel culture in the world of academia, who had written a report for the conservative think thank Policy Exchange, which argued that UK education is almost as captured by ideologies as America.

She told Keegan that 75 percent of children had been exposed to “critical social justice theories” in schools.

Under Section 406/407 of the Education Act, the pursuit of partisan political activities or promotion of partisan political views are forbidden for maintained schools in Britain.

Cates was concerned that children are being taught that “the organising principle of society is racism, gender theory, the idea that there are many genders, and everyone has a gender identity.”

“And of those three-quarters of British children who'd encountered those theories in schools, 68 percent, they’ve been taught those ideas as fact, without alternative views being on offer, or told that the alternative views were not respectable,” she said.

Cates called them “very destructive ideas that are really attacking liberalism, the foundation of our democracy.”

‘To Have Those Debates Is Fundamental’

Cates asked Keegan if she believed “highly contested” theories taught as fact are “politically partisan.”

Keegan agreed that they were but said that the “ability to be transparent, and to have those debates is fundamental.”

Conservative MP Caroline Ansell said that she had concerns about the curriculum and teachers’ ability to express their concerns around it.

“I fear that that freedom of speech for teachers is not there, not least for pupils,” she said.

Ansell said that a “granddad shared with me his utter dismay that his 5-year-old son had come home and said, ‘Today, we were learning if we were in the wrong body.’”

“And just to really add to that, he said, ‘I wouldn’t dare raise this as a concern because otherwise I would be deemed to be transphobic,’” she added.

“The teachers and parents were very concerned at what they fear is being taught in schools,” she said.

Right to Ask What Children Are Taught at School

Conservative MP Nick Fletcher added that, “If we’re dropping seeds of doubt ... into young people, that’s extremely dangerous.”

“I think there are books written by activists that are finding their way in school, which they shouldn’t be. I don’t think parents realise that they have the ability to ask what’s been taught,” he said.

British MPs have discussed how materials are being flooded into schools by external providers who are exposing children to “deeply inappropriate, wildly inaccurate, sexually explicit, and damaging materials” in the name of sex education.

“We need to educate our parents that they have got a right to ask, but not only have they got a right to ask what their child’s been taught at school, they’ve actually got a right to kick back against what they’re being taught at school also,” said Fletcher.

Keegan said that there was some question about whether there was a “copyright issue.”

“But just to make it clear and put on the record, schools can share results, resources to parents in person without infringing an external provider’s copyright in the resource,” she added.

PA Media contributed to this report.