After a woman was fired from a catholic school for her social media posts, an employment tribunal ruled against her. Gozen Soydag, a 37-year-old social media influencer and school pastoral manager was let go for her Christian views on marriage. St. Anne’s Catholic High School for Girls fired her in 2023 after she refused to take down a post to her 30,000 Instagram followers.
According to advocacy group the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), she was let go for Christian beliefs on marriage and relationships she had expressed and put forward for debate on Instagram in her own time.” The Watford Employment Tribunal on Jan. 14 upheld the school’s decision to fire her. She plans to appeal the decision. Her lawyers argued that she was the victim of wrongful dismissal, harassment, discrimination, and breaches of Soydag’s human rights.
Jo Saunders, the Catholic school’s assistant head teacher denied blocking Soydag’s free speech rights. She reportedly said, “We did not curtail her free speech, we just said that she had to take down her posts.” Saunders likened Soydag’s beliefs on Christian marriage to controversial right-wing social media personality Andrew Tate, saying they were “incompatible in modern society.”
Woke Employment Judge Sarah Matthews dismissed each of Soydag’s claims, saying her posts “only celebrated the nuclear family, which could make other students from different backgrounds feel devalued. ” While Soydag had removed the offending posts, school officials allegedly received complaints. At the hearing, school officials told her the expressed biblical beliefs were “incompatible with the school’s ethos,”
“On occasion, Miss Soydag would post videos on the theme of marriage and relationships, not because she agreed with the entirety of what she posted, but to generate debate,” her representatives said. “The assistant deputy head told Miss Soydag that this video was concerning because if the same statements were made by a man, they would be deemed ‘misogynistic.’”
Administrators gave Soydag a 24-hour ultimatum demanding she ensure her account was no longer visible. “The following day, Miss Soydag told the headteacher [Emma Loveland] what she had done to make her accounts less visible, but was told that her accounts were ‘global,’ that it was ‘too little too late,’ and the beliefs she expressed were openly criticized,” stated the Christian Legal Centre.
When she asked why she was let go, Loveland reportedly replied that she refused to have “someone with that mindset working at the school.” An email told her she was let go “due to much of your extensive online profile being incompatible with the school’s mission statement and ethos, and the fact that despite being asked to remove such incompatible information, your profile appears to a large extent to remain unchanged.”
Watch A Video of Soydag below.
After the decision from the tribunal came down, Soydag said she felt both “devastated and confused” by the court’s decision but will appeal and “fight for justice.” “This was a Catholic school, and they knew I was a passionate woman of faith,” Soydag added. “The school’s building is in the shape of the cross. Every classroom had a cross and Bible verses on the walls. This was a place where I believed they accepted Jesus.”
Featured image: Screen shot from embedded video.