Nurse Sues NHS Trust Claiming She Was Forced to Attend ‘Racist’ Critical Race Theory Training

The Tavistock Centre in London in an undated file photo. Aaron Chown/PA

The team supporting a nurse’s lawsuit that claims she was forced by a National Health Service (NHS) trust to attend a course that branded all white people as “racist” and is aiming to go after more institutions that have adopted a “highly politicised, divisive set of ideologies.”

Amy Gallagher, a mental health professional undertaking training in psychotherapy at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, is suing the Trust, over claims it is forcing students to adhere to critical race theory (CRT).

“I’m bringing this legal case to protect my career but it’s also the first test of woke ideology in the courts. The NHS is forcing someone to adopt a racist ideology and it needs to be stopped," Gallagher told The Telegraph.

Dr. Anna Loutfi, a barrister and head of legal at the Bad Law Project, told The Epoch Times that supporting the case is part of the wider remit of the project, which was set up by actor and activist Laurence Fox, the campaigner and former policeman Harry Miller, and family law barrister Sarah Phillimore.

White Privilege

Gallagher, a Christian, said was forced to attend anti-racism training where she was told that Christianity was linked to racism. She also objected to a lecture titled “whiteness—a problem of our time” in October 2020, where attendees were forced to confront “the reality of white privilege.”

Critics of CRT call it an outgrowth of Marxism and say that it interprets society through a dichotomy between “oppressor” and “oppressed,” replacing social classes with racial groups. The ideology has worked its way through contemporary society, affecting the education system, workplace, military, and more.

Proponents of CRT see deeply embedded racism in all aspects of society, including in neutral systems such as law and in the school curriculum, and deem it to be the root cause of “racial inequity,” or different outcomes for different races.

The Bad Law Project is supporting Gallagher’s legal team over claims the NHS Trust subjected her to disciplinary proceedings for questioning CRT. Gallagher is bringing claims of racial discrimination, religious discrimination, breach of contract, harassment, bullying, and abuse of power against the NHS Trust.

Amy Gallagher. Courtesy The Bad Law Project

Loutfi said, “what they call antiracism, we say is racism.”

“Her case rests on the case that Tavistock is pushing anti-white racism as part of its ethos, is discriminating against people who don’t believe that white people should be treated negatively, discussed negatively or called pejorative names, which she claims she has experienced,” said Loutfi.

Freedom of Expression

Loutfi said the Equality Act is often used when discrimination is discussed, but “we then forget that we have a common law right in England and Wales for freedom of expression.” The Equality Act is UK legislation that protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in society.

“That means that the general principle in England and Wales is that you are free to say things unless there’s some reason why you should not, and that’s enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights Article 10. Under Article 9, we also have a right to freedom of conscience which means our thoughts, our beliefs, are protected,” she said.

“There’s a problem with that as we are losing our relationship with freedom of expression,” said Loutfi. She added that the Equality Act turns the country and the culture away from the idea that freedom of expression is a given.

British Actor Laurence Fox, Leader of The Reclaim Party who co-founded the Bad Law Project, speaks with EpochTV's American Thought Leaders on Sept. 20, 2022. Screenshot via The Epoch Times

Of late, cases have been fought on this principle. The case of Maya Forstater, who lost out on a job for saying people cannot change their biological sex, established a binding legal precedent that “gender-critical beliefs were in principle protected by the Equality Act.”

“Though I think we should not be having to defend everything we say and think based on whether we can show a judge its a whole belief system or a lack of, we should be able to rely on the common law principle that in general, speech is protected,” said Loutfi.

Loutfi said that in some select cases the Bad Law Project will go after the big institutions such as the Church of England, the NHS, the Police Force, the judiciary, and the education system.

“Particularly public institutions that are funded with public money that we think are not serving the public impartially but are adopting a highly politicised, divisive set of ideologies with taxpayers money, which are against the majority of people’s will, in order to push a way of thinking that has never been debated in parliament, doesn’t have the consent of the population and is thoroughly corrosive to society,” she added.

An Anti-Racist Organisation

A Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email that it “cannot comment on an ongoing legal case. As a Trust we have made a public commitment to work to become an anti-racist organisation.”

The spokesperson pointed to the Trust’s anti-racist statement, which says it is committing “to perpetual learning and reflection at all levels in order to identify actions and tackle structural racism.”

Some of the commitments include mandatory “inclusive and compassionate leadership training” as well as “Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion” elements, such as obligatory Allyship training, a training program that helps employees to “promote and foster an inclusive culture.”

A spokesperson for the law firm Shakespeare Martineau, which is representing the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, told The Epoch Times by email that it is “working with our client on preparation of its defence.”

“As this is a live matter, we are unable to comment further,” added the spokesperson.