A lecturer at an east London college who compared gay teachers to the Ku Klux Klan and admitted that he loathed Sir Elton John for his “over-burdensome gayism” has been sacked.
The Principal at Newham College has stepped down after ITV News exposed homophobia within senior management. Last Wednesday ITV broadcast a secret recording of academic Dr Mark Wallcot comparing gay teachers to members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Martin Powell-Davies – member of the NUT National Executive, writes about last Saturday’s LGBT Conference in London: Bigotry divides, collective action unites.
Another huge success, the day was hosted by the magnificent University of Birmingham, with children’s workshops in the morning and a extremely entertaining and moving two-hour show in the evening, hilariously introduced by comedien Brbara Nice.
Today (20th November) is the annual International Transgender Day of Remembrance. In the last year 238 trans people have been murdered worldwide. SOUK’s Andrew Dobbin has written ‘Trans – The forgotten strand?’ , looking at Trans issues from an employment and educational viewpoint.
Schools OUT’s Elly Barnes and her Educate and Celebrate initiative have made headlines in today’s Pink News as she takes the fight for the acceptance of diversity into the classrooms of Birmingham’s primary schools.
The following report appeared online soon after Sue Sanders and Shaun Dellenty appeared on BBC Radion London 94.9FM. Homophobic bullying is still common in some schools, a charity has warned, to the extent some teachers are too fearful to reveal their sexuality.
A report by think tank Reform says government ministers should support headteachers who reduce the amount of TAs and allow class sizes to rise. More money would be available to swell the size of teachers’ salaries and make ‘quality’ teaching count.
(7th November) on the Vanessa Feltz radio programme SOUK co-chair Sue Sanders and Sean Dellenty, of Inclusion For All led a phone-in on the use of the word ‘gay’ in schools. This programme went further asking whether teachers should be ‘out’ at schools. Promotions Officer Andrew Dobbin also made a contribution.
A teacher in Scotland who told students that “Hitler wasn’t all bad”, because he killed gay people, has been struck off.
