The Equality Tribunal found that a secondary school did not discriminate against a Traveller student in its disciplinary treatment of him, including his expulsion. Equality Officer Hugh Lonsdale dated the decision 2 October 2014.
The student’s parents brought the complaint on his behalf. They said the school repeatedly failed to hear his account before imposing sanctions. The school said its disciplinary measures responded to his behaviour and were applied as they would be to any student in the same circumstances.
The officer said the school might have been better advised to ask the student for his version of events and involve his parents earlier. But he found no evidence that the school acted because the student belonged to the Traveller community. He concluded that another pupil behaving in the same way would have been treated similarly. The complaint was not well founded.