UK Edition
Proposed new definition of Islamophobia could see teachers forced to allow full-face veils in classrooms, warns Trevor Phillips
Teachers could be forced to allow full-face veils to be worn in classrooms if ministers accept a new definition of Islamophobia, one of the country’s leading equality campaigners has warned.
Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said it would be a “grave mistake” to define Islamophobia as a form of racism, as a committee of MPs and peers has recommended.
Mr Phillips said defining Muslims as a race would “actually make life harder for them” instead of helping and that it would “reduce the lives of British Muslims… to the status of perpetual victims and pawns in some wider battle”.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims published a report in November which urged the Government to adopt a new definition of Islamophobia.
The definition read: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”
A new report published by the Policy Exchange think tank raises major concerns about the definition and urges ministers not to adopt it.
The report said the proposed definition was “not only inadequate but divisive and potentially damaging to social cohesion”.
It warned it would “risk endangering free speech, press freedom and open the door to an assault on current counter-extremism policy”.
Mr Phillips wrote the foreword to the report and said despite the “undoubted good intentions” of the MPs and peers who wrote the definition, they “appear to understand neither the concept of racism nor the meaning of Islamophobia”.
Mr Phillips suggested adopting it could have far-reaching consequences across society.
He said: “My biggest concern is that instead of protecting Muslims, defining Islamophobia as the APPG does – as anti-Muslim racism – will actually make life harder for them.
“To define Islamophobia as ‘anti-Muslim’ racism means, in effect, that all Muslims should be treated exactly as others are.
“Tackling Muslim disadvantage demands different treatment for those who declare themselves to be Muslims – with prayer rooms, holiday arrangements and so on.
“Combating racial disadvantage necessitates the opposite, ensuring that people are treated similarly irrespective of their ethnicity.”
Mr Phillips said under the APPG’s definition an employer “would have every right” to tell a Muslim employee they could not have “special breaks” to use a prayer room on the grounds that “we do not differentiate by race in this workplace”.
The former equalities tsar also suggested the definition could leave teachers open to accusations of racism.
He said: “Today, many schools allow uniform variations that permit the wearing of headscarves, but not full-face veils; would the prohibition of the niqab become an example of ‘anti-Muslim racism’?”
Mr Phillips said the definition “reduces the lives of British Muslims – the vast majority of whom feel strongly attached to the UK – to the status of perpetual victims and pawns in some wider battle”.
“British Muslims are so much more than this, and before the Government or any institution adopts a definition that treats them in this way, much deeper thought is required,” he said.