Teacher sues school for discrimination against her Christian faith in response to abortion question
A Christian teacher in northeast England is suing the school that dismissed her, alleging it discriminated against her faith after she gave a pro-life answer when a student asked her about abortion.
Anita Meston, 63, has filed a discrimination claim against Biddick Academy, a state-funded secondary school in the town of Washington in Sunderland, the legal advocacy group ADF International, which is backing her claim, said.
A preliminary hearing is set for Friday at the Employment Tribunal.
Meston had worked full time at Biddick as a substitute teacher for six months, and the school renewed her contract the previous week.
The dispute began in March 2025, when Meston covered a history class for Year 8 students. Partway through, a student asked whether she was “pro-abortion,” and she answered that she was “pro-life.”
Asked to explain, Meston said her Christian faith was the reason, along with knowing women who regretted ending a pregnancy. One girl said she knew women who felt no regret after an abortion, and Meston answered “fair enough.”
The following day, the head teacher called Meston in, said someone had complained about the class and wanted to hear her version of events. As the meeting ended, the head teacher told her she must keep personal views out of the classroom and said her contract would end.
Meston said she had offered views only when students asked her directly, about abortion and about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Just before letting her go, the head teacher asked whether she had brought up Donald Trump in that class, and she said no.
The lesson had dealt with whether the Dresden bombing of 1945 was proportionate. Meston asked whether the present-day Israel-Palestine conflict raised comparable moral questions, and one boy said he was “pro-Israel” and asked whether she was too.
She said she was, and added that she was sorry for the innocent civilians in Gaza trapped by the fighting.
“I am profoundly shocked by Biddick Academy’s decision to dismiss me for my faith-based pro-life beliefs and other mainstream personal and political views,” Meston said.
She said she had answered her students honestly before steering them back to the subject, and she called the dismissal censorship. She said she brought the claim so that no other teacher would suffer discrimination over pro-life views.
Jeremiah Igunnubole, a barrister and legal counsel for ADF in London, said the law protects every employee from discrimination. “It is unacceptable that expressing pro-life and other views in response to a question can result in a person being terminated,” he said.
He said the group wants to establish that employers may not fire staff for holding Christian beliefs they dislike. If teachers lose their jobs over opinions others reject, he said, pupils will conclude that silencing those opinions is acceptable.
Meston has taught for 28 years and started at Biddick in October 2024. She mostly taught French, filled in for other subjects and acted as form tutor, a role similar to homeroom teacher, for a Year 10 group.
A group of students asked her more than once about Trump and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. She replied briefly that both were popular and returned to the lesson.
Meston had once met a pupil at an event held by Reform UK, and afterward, a student asked whether she would attend the party’s conference in February 2025. She said she would. ADF said she never pressed her opinions on students.
Britain’s Equality Act bans discrimination based on protected characteristics, one of which is religion or belief. ADF argues that pro-life convictions qualify because they are deeply held Christian beliefs about the worth of human life.
