Adam Walker who referred to immigrants as animals and filth.

The General Teaching Council (GTC) controversially cleared a BNP teacher of racism after he posted comments online referring to immigrants as “savage animals” and “filth.”

Adam Walker, a teacher and member of the BNP resigned in 2007 after accessing a far-right chat room during lessons. Thirty-nine year-old Adam Walker, of Spennymoor, County Durham, accessed a far-right wing chat room during a lesson and posted critical comments against asylum seekers, immigrants and Muslims.

Walker resigned from his job at Houghton Kepier Sports College, Houghton-le-Spring, near Sunderland, after admitting using a school computer to access a discussion forum about the BNP. He was defended by the BNP who planned a demonstration in Birmingham City Centre where his future as a teacher was to be decided.

Despite Walker’s clear usage of racial references in his referral to immigrants as “savage animals” and “filth”, the three-member GTC committee meeting in Birmingham cleared him of racism, allowing Walker to apply for further teaching jobs in the future.

The GTC committee said that they were not satisfied that Walker’s views, which included saying that Britain had become a “dumping ground for the filth of the Third World”, were suggestive of intolerance (BBC: Tuesday, 25 May). Instead, Walker was found guilty of misconduct for using a laptop during lessons.

The chairwoman of the GTC committee, Angela Stones said, “The committee does not accept that references to ‘immigrants’ are of themselves suggestive of any particular views on race.” A peculiar conclusion as Walker’s references to immigrants and people from developing countries as “savage animals” and “filth” are clearly racial slurs.

Making racism legal

What the GTC committee has clearly done is given a licence for racists and racism to flourish in British schools. Racism is now in fact legal.

In March 2010, a team reviewing race relations policy in schools for Children’s Secretary Ed Balls caused controversy when they consulted white extremists such as members of the National Front and the decision was made to allow members of far-right racist organisations to teach.

Maurice Smith, the former chief inspector of schools who led the inquiry, and an official from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said that there was no relationship between racist behaviour and membership of a racist organisation. (Read Racist teachers allowed to teach) Would Smith had drawn the same conclusions if the teachers in question were Muslims and had belonged to Muslim organisations? The answer reveals the contradictions in race relations in this country.

Would the GTC committee have cleared a Muslim teacher if he had posted comments on a Muslim website referring to white people in Britain as “savage animals” and “filth”? Or said that the Muslim countries had become a ‘dumping ground for the filth of the Western World’? It is unlikely that a Muslim teacher could get away with these comments and very unlikely that the GTC committee would be unsatisfied that these comments were not suggestive of intolerance.

If a teacher had referred to women, gays or Jews as “filth” would that teacher be cleared by the GTC committee and allowed to teach? Again, readers can draw their own conclusions.

The evidence is overwhelming, the GTC and the government have clearly protected racists and the freedom of white speech whilst outlawing any dissenting speech from black and minority ethnic communities on issues such as Iraq and British foreign policy overseas; and it has to be asked, where is the Equality and Human Rights Commission now when crucial issues such as this needs to be addressed?

While it is fine for children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds to be taught by teachers who belong to white nationalist organisations what are the chances that white parents would put up with their children being taught by black nationalists or Muslim nationalists? The double standards are considerable.

The ruling by the GTC committee clearly legitimises racism.

For further research:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8703184.stm


Author

4 thought on “It’s alright to call immigrants “savage animals” and “filth”, says General Teaching Council, as BNP teacher cleared”
  1. Your report is sensationalist and inaccurate.

    The facts are these:-
    1. Mr Walker posted to a general forum in his local area not an “extremist website”.
    2. He posted under a pseudonym and made no mention of his workplace.
    3. His comments concerned some (not all) immigrants and in particular those who abused the hospitality and protection afforded by our country by committing crimes such as rape.
    4. “Immigrants” is not a racial term as immigrants to our country are comprised of people from all races.
    5. The GTC as a public body has a duty to uphold the European Convention on Human Rights.
    6. Any restriction on the right of Mr Walker to freedom of expression would have to be shown to be legitimate, necessary, proportionate and meet a pressing social need.
    7. Evidence was presented to show that Mr Walker was an excellent teacher, who improved grades and treated his pupils with the utmost respect.

  2. Dear Mr Patrick Harrington (I believe you are the same individual who defended Mr Walker as his trades union representative and your views are expressed in the following news report http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8701829.stm.

    1. My article clearly states that Mr Walker accessed a far-right chatroom during school lessons and posted critical comments about immigrants, asylum seekers and Muslims. (Please read http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10157903.stm
    2. Whether he did not mention his name or workplace is not the context, the context from which I wrote the article was what the reaction would be had Mr Walker been a Muslim teacher.
    3. If Mr Walker’s comments only referred to some immigrants who were criminals then why did he also say that Britain had become a “dumping ground for the filth of the Third World”? Is he saying that European immigrants do not commit crimes?
    4. Immigrants has historically been used as a racial term in British politics and the language in which he used alongside the term immigrant such as ‘filth’ and ‘savage animals’ fits the pattern of racist language that is used when immigration is discussed in Britain.
    5.The GTC has a duty to uphold the European Convention on Human Rights, I agree, but the context of my article stated that if a Muslim teacher had done exactly the same thing Mr Walker had done would the GTC uphold his human rights?
    6. Freedom of speech is an essential right in all free societies but when the speech of some are protected over others that is when it becomes a problem. I ask again would Muslim teachers, would black nationalist teachers be given the same freedom of speech?
    7. Mr Walker could may well have been an excellent teacher, but like I stated in my article if Muslim or black nationalist teachers were teaching white children and posted comments from the opposite context Mr Walker, yourself and the British National Party would be warning white parents about these teachers, and I very much doubt that you would be defending their right to free speech.

  3. I was proud to represent Adam Walker. You are quite wrong to suggest that I would not represent and support a Muslim or Black Nationalist teacher being persecuted on account of their political or religious views. In fact I invite anyone in such a position to contact me. I defend the Human and Employment rights of all. I find many of the attacks on the civil liberties of Muslims deeply worrying. I have argued with members of the BNP on this point as eventually rules brought in against one group are later more generally applied. One day, the BNP, another day, the Muslims! I hope that everyone will realise that an attack on the civil liberties of one group is an attack on us all.

    Mr Walker made it clear in other parts of his posts not only that there were some immigrants who committed crimes but that others had a positive impact.

  4. I have to agree with you on the issue of civil liberties. I have always believed that all groups in society, even those we disagree with have the right to free speech. I am also concerned about the attack on the civil liberities of Muslims where the government labels criticism of foreign policy as ‘terrorism’ and ‘hate speech’.

    When it comes down to it I made a clear argument in my article that if Mr Walker was a Muslim I very much doubt that the General Teaching Council would have cleared him. There lies the problem. If Mr Walker is entitled to his free speech, so should Muslims and other groups opposed to the actions of the British government at home and abroad.

    Mr Walker may not have labelled all immigrants but the fact that he did not have the patience to conduct his private political affairs outside of school hours indicates a problem in my view. His usage of the terms ‘filth’ and ‘savage animals’ have been used to describe immigrants of non European races in the British media, and unless he includes Eastern European immigrants as part of the criminal class which he denounces his comments remain suspicious.

    Hopefully, your discourse with the British National Party will make them reflect on the human rights abuses which successive British governments have committed and continue to commit overseas upon non-Europeans, so that they may understand that the feeling which many English people feel regarding the erosion of their identity, culture and religion has been long-felt by many non Europeans for centuries when they were forced to abandon their religions, culture and identity.

    Discussions such as the one we are having is needed in the public domain to create better understanding of current events.

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