A School Excluding a 12 Year-Old Girl for Wearing a Union Jack Dress Must be a Wake-Up Call

This post, authored by C.J. Strachan, is republished with permission from The Daily Sceptic

Another month, another glaring example of toxic activism sweeping through the British workplace, and this time, it’s no less than shocking.

On July 11th, 12 year-old Courtney Wright was sent home from Bilton School in Rugby, Warwickshire, simply for wearing a Union Flag dress and hat for the school’s Cultural Diversity Day. She had put effort into her costume, even writing a speech celebrating British culture: Shakespeare, fish and chips, tea, the Royal Family. Yet for what was a harmless celebration of her national culture, she was excluded.

The school’s response? A sanctimonious head of year, presumably with the support of management and colleagues, told her: “You get to celebrate your culture every day. This is for everyone else.” Then ordered her to remove her outfit and wear a second-hand uniform or go home. So she, rightly, called her father, who came to collect her.

Stuart Field, her father, a 47 year-old Marine Engineer, alleges she was not alone. A boy was reportedly sent home for wearing a farmer’s costume, illustrating a broader, troubling trend: the suppression of British symbols and pride in the name of ‘diversity’.

The aftermath saw the usual potted response from the school’s governing trust, the Stowe Valley Trust about how it values “diversity”, “respect” and so forth, yet its words ring hollow. It claims to regret “upset caused”, note, not the exclusion itself – only the distress that followed. It says it will “reflect on how this could have been handled better”. It then goes on to assure parents that it will be looking at the policies and training.

But what does that really mean? The trust refuses to admit that sending a girl home for celebrating her country was an appalling and divisive breach of common sense and, arguably, of law. Their language suggests an attempt to dodge accountability, to spin it as a mere mishandling rather than a fundamental failure.

Here’s the key question: what kind of workplace or educational culture allows, even tacitly endorses, such an action that it becomes considered the correct approach to exclude? Why was the head of year convinced that excluding Courtney over a flag was appropriate, given exclusion is an incredibly serious escalation? Did the trust endorse this? Because it certainly hasn’t condemned it outright. Its apology is for how it was “handled”, not for the decision itself.

This incident exposes the true nature of so-called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies in many institutions. They aren’t about unity or celebrating shared identity, they’re about division, exclusion and smearing symbols that represent ‘the oppressor’, in this case the United Kingdom, the nation which has welcomed these other cultures. To the staff involved, they clearly see the Union Flag as some sort of hate symbol, and British culture as invalid and oppressive and so egregious that anyone expressing pride in it or displaying its symbols is on a moral level with a bully or a thief within the school community.

I would like to understand how these members of staff came to think this about the flag and symbols of their own nation. Was this something that they were taught at their employer? Or was it taught at school or college? Well, given the message the head of year sent to the pupils through this exclusion – that the Union Flag and British culture are so toxic we cannot permit them onsite – I think we have the answer. We have a situation where the national flag, once a symbol of unity, is now cast as a hate symbol by radicalised teachers who have been indoctrinated into a divisive narrative.

But what about the employer here? Who trained the staff in DEI? Which policies were in play? And how do these policies square with legal obligations? Because, frankly, many aspects of what happened here appear to breach laws designed to protect freedom of expression and equal treatment as laid down in the legal obligations of schools. The school indicates that it will examine its polices and staff training. I would urge the parents to monitor this as in my experience, if it happens at all, it’s usually a case of going through the motions until the media circus moves on, then it’s business as usual.

But there’s another thing going on here: radical hard Left political views are now so ubiquitous in our institutions and education system that they have become the culture. The staff are so indoctrinated that they see no problem with excluding an A-grade student in this scenario. So what are these activists actually teaching our children? Is it any wonder that the majority of Gen Z think Britain is a racist country and that only 11% would fight to defend it, according to one recent poll? My sister-in-law teaches A-level biology in a North East comp. She reports that the staff room is toxic. A small cadre of very loud, highly politicised activist teachers spend every minute loudly proclaiming every hard Left political position while the majority stare at their phones, drink their tea and try to avoid engaging.

As a former HR professional, I urge parents and employees alike: scrutinise your workplaces and schools. Ask the uncomfortable questions. What is your DEI policy? How do you teach it? Are your children being indoctrinated to see national symbols as hate symbols? Are they being taught to be ashamed of their county, culture and history? If there are employees behaving like those I describe in the staff room above, challenge them. If they respond with aggression, complain to Human Resources. Do not stand idly by while a loud minority bully and intimidate.

And to those responsible at the trust? No, “reflection” is not enough. You need to clarify, you need to condemn, and you need to abandon policies that promote exclusion rather than inclusion. You need to follow your legal obligations.

This is a wake-up call. We’ve turned a blind eye too long, tolerating the erosion of shared national identity under the guise of inclusion by radical activists in our institutions. If you see this happening, challenge it: persistently, politely and specifically. Don’t accept empty apologies, demand real accountability. The biggest lie of the hard Left is that they want to unite people and bridge differences. In fact, the Marxist-Leninism that lies at the heart of their beliefs demands that society be destroyed so it can be rebuilt. This is achieved by splitting society into ‘oppressors’ and ‘oppressed’. Courtney’s crime here was to celebrate the ‘oppressors’, and yes, this has nothing to do with ‘inclusion’, rather it is all about exclusion. It is all about division and it is a deliberate act to attack the glue that is the only thing that is holding the failed multicultural experiment together: our flag and our nation.

C.J. Strachan is the pseudonym of a concerned Scot who worked for 30 years as a Human Resources executive in some of the UK’s leading organisations. Subscribe to his Substack page.

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