The saga of Enoch Burke has been simplified in the retelling. This former teacher at Wilson’s Hospital School in County Westmeath, Ireland, who refused to adopt the “preferred pronouns”’ of a pupil, has now been sent to prison for the fourth time for contempt of court. Most of the media discussion has focused on the ethics of a school that insists on promoting a niche ideological worldview. But this case also invites us to confront a key dilemma of any liberal democracy: how should a person protest when he sincerely believes that laws are unjust?
Burke’s story has been something of an odyssey, and so commentators have been apt to seek shortcuts to make sense of it all. His defenders claim that he has been persecuted by the state for his Christian faith and opposition to trans ideology. His critics insist that he was suspended for gross misconduct at a school chapel service, that he has persistently flouted the rule of law, and that his imprisonment has nothing whatsoever to do with transgenderism. Both of these positions contain elements of truth, but they are also incomplete.
The dispute began in early 2022, when the school’s principal, Niamh McShane, emailed staff instructing them to refer to a male student by a female name and the pronouns “they/them”. The following day, Burke wrote to McShane to raise his objections, and to seek clarification on whether parents had been informed that staff and students were required to adopt this change.
His concern was uncontroversial: in a Christian school, social transitioning runs directly against the institution’s ethos. Since the findings of the Cass Review into paediatric “gender-affirming care”, we also now know that the practice of adopting preferred pronouns and names at school is “not a neutral act”. It can have the effect of “locking in” perceptions of gender and identity that make future medicalisation more likely. It is, in other words, a perilous psychological intervention by teaching staff who are completely unqualified to make such decisions.
Burke wrote again to challenge the policy and state that he would pursue the matter further. He additionally raised it with the Bishop of the Diocese. At a later meeting with the principal and her deputy, he reiterated his objections. McShane responded on 27 May, insisting that the child be addressed according to the preferred name and pronouns, citing the Equal Status Act 2000. She acknowledged that this might be difficult given Burke’s beliefs, but required compliance nonetheless. In effect, this amounted to a case of compelled speech.
On 21 June, Burke challenged McShane at a chapel service attended by staff, alumni, governors and a handful of current sixth-form students. He reiterated his religious objections to transgenderism and, according to one report, ‘followed the principal and publicly harangued her’. Commentators have repeatedly claimed that it was this outburst, and not his position on gender ideology, that resulted in his suspension by the Board of Trustees. However, the Court of Appeal has confirmed that Burke’s refusal to use the pupil’s prescribed name and pronouns was a fundamental factor in his suspension.
Burke insisted that his punishment was unjust, and that his constitutional rights to freedom of religion were being infringed upon. He continually returned to the school, insisting that he be allowed to continue teaching his classes, until the school sought a court order to prohibit him from entering the premises. Burke defied the order repeatedly, and his time in prison has now totalled in excess of 500 days. The courts have also tried to prevent him from returning to the school by fining him for every day he turns up. Of the approximately €222,000 of fines he has accumulated, €40,000 has been taken from his salary, leaving him in considerable debt to the state.
Burke’s protest is not simply against the school, but against a legal system that he sees as complicit in a broader societal takeover by gender ideology. On this, he has a point. When I was in the Dáil (the Irish parliament in Dublin) for a free speech summit last June, I noticed that a Progress Pride flag had been etched permanently onto one of the glass doors that all parliamentarians must pass through. The message is clear: irrespective of your politics, you must pay fealty to this divisive new orthodoxy.
The tortuous legal battles between Burke and the state have obscured the original problem. We have a state-funded school enforcing a doctrine that is in direct opposition not only to the Christian beliefs on which it was founded, but to the views of a substantial proportion of the Irish population. The creed is propagated largely by members of the ruling class, with little regard for its unpopularity among the people they are meant to serve. Moreover, the school’s claims to be upholding the “welfare” of its pupils are incoherent given the findings of the Cass Review, and the fact that “social transitioning” puts young people at risk.
“The creed is propagated largely by members of the ruling class, with little regard for its unpopularity among the people they are meant to serve.”
Had the school been a private institution, and had Burke voluntarily signed a contract which incorporated an expectation that he should promote a belief-system that was antithetical to his own, then he would have no case. But the school is guilty of promoting highly contested theories as fact, endangering pupil welfare, and compelling the speech of its staff. Moreover, the school authorities appear to have failed to recognise their own ideological capture, or to take on board the validity of the criticisms. This is a serious breach of their responsibilities and is highly unethical. Burke was entirely right to object.
His manner of protest is more dubious. His family has been accused of disruptive behaviour in court, with the judge claiming that they have systematically attempted to derail the proceedings by repeatedly hurling invective and abuse. Burke’s tactic of returning to his place of work in spite of the suspension might have been a powerful form of peaceful protest, but the presence of children makes the approach ethically unsound. Some pupils have greeted Burke outside the school with warmth and offered him their support, but the principle of safeguarding means that trespassing on school property cannot ever be tolerated.
All of which brings us back to the key question: how is one to oppose unjust systems while being expected to live and operate within them? Perhaps a better tactic would have been for Burke to simply refuse to comply with the speech edicts following the meeting on 19 May. The principal had no right to impose a new policy that bears no relation to Burke’s agreement terms of employment, let alone one that endangers pupil welfare. Burke would have had every right to take a stance of non-compliance and, had he been suspended for this, his case would have been much stronger.
By continually appearing at the school, he has enabled the focus to shift from the school’s misconduct to his own disregard for court authority. His protest became the issue, rather than the policy he was protesting. Yet he is also perhaps right that extreme forms of peaceful protest might be necessary in a climate of such stifling orthodoxy, even if that means imprisonment. Typically, such actions would be necessary in tyrannical regimes. One example would be Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian women’s rights campaigner who has been arrested on 13 occasions and sentenced to 31 years in prison. But to see an Irish citizen so determined to spend time in jail to prove his point is remarkable.
There is a long tradition of civil disobedience that supports Burke’s view. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963), Martin Luther King, Jr, makes the case for a specifically liberal method of tackling unjust laws: “One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”
The law is no guarantee of morality, and unjust laws undeniably exist. To take the UK as an example, there are currently laws on the statute books that are overtly antithetical to the principle of free speech. For example, Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 outlaws the sending of a “letter, electronic communication or article of any description” which is “indecent or grossly offensive”. Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 likewise prohibits words that are deemed “grossly offensive”, but adds another authoritarian twist by stating that a person may be found guilty if he or she has caused “annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety”. Such vague legislation is a gateway to exploitation by a state that might seek to silence its critics.
Burke takes the view that the Irish government has embraced an unpopular but fashionable ideology and insisted that it be baked into its legal system. After all, the notion of self-ID has led to violent men being accommodated in women’s prisons. To break the law in the service of a moral cause seems counter-intuitive, but it is one of the mechanisms by which awareness of bad laws can be raised, thereby increasing the possibility of their repeal.
Burke doubtless considers himself to be very much in this tradition of protest, but this is not necessarily a compelling justification for his actions. Just Stop Oil campaigners who have been incarcerated for their protests think of themselves as “political prisoners”, and yet this view is unlikely to be shared by those who disapprove of their cause. When it comes to Burke, it is surely legitimate to ask whether his strategy has undermined rather than strengthened his case. With children caught in the middle, and the legal proceedings overwhelming the central ethical issue, the school’s outrageous behaviour has been overshadowed. But it is also true that Burke has engaged in a form of peaceful protest, motivated by conscience, and undertaken with full willingness to bear the consequences.
I am not qualified to say whether Burke’s method of protest is the right one, whether it has been effective or counterproductive. Of course, whether a cause is worthy of civil disobedience is a matter of opinion, and just because someone believes a law or system to be unjust, that does not automatically make it so. But amid all the clamour and commotion, we shouldn’t lose sight of why this protest was necessary in the first place. A school was enforcing a creed it had no moral right to impose, and one employee refused to comply.
