Schools adjudicator rules Islamic school entry criteria “unlawful” for bias against Shias

The Schools Adjudicator has ruled that an Islamic school's admission policies are unlawful due its preference for Sunni Muslims over Shias and ordered it amend its policy in time for the 2011/12 academic year.

Leicester's Madani High School's admissions policy was stated to “ fulfil demands from the Muslim community as priority”.  However, in its supplementary application form – used when the school was oversubscribed -  it was stated that priority would be afforded to those who follow one of the Hanafi, Shaf’i, Hanbali or Maliki schools of Islamic Law, all of which belong to the Sunni form of Islam. The complaint – a member of the city's Shia Muslim community - argued that this stipulation excluded Shia Muslims who follow the Jafari School of Thought.

The adjudicator, Dr Elizabeth Passmore, said that the statutory notice published on 25 March 2005 by the proposer, the Leicester Islamic Trust,  referred to Muslim faith without any qualification and the application made to the Secretary of State to designate the school as having a religious character gave the single word “Muslim” in response to the enquiry at 1(b), “the religion or religious denomination or religious denominations with which the school is to be associated”.

She added: “I have been unable to find any document that currently applies to the school that designates it as being a Muslim school for a particular group of Muslims.

“The school sent me a new instrument of government that is said to be under discussion with the LA and relevant bodies which does refer to the four schools of Islamic law.  This is a much more extensive document and introduces the reference to the four Schools of Thought in a way that would have implications for the future.  However, it is not the instrument that currently has any force.”

“It seems to me to be clear that the school was expected to be a Muslim faith school, equally accessible to all Muslims and not one giving priority to a particular group of Muslims. This expectation may, I surmise, have contributed to the strong support for the school.  We cannot know whether the proposal for the school would have been supported or approved if it had been specified for one or more particular Muslim Schools of Thought.”

The adjudicator also ruled that was contravening the Sex Discrimination Act by in its attempts to create a balance of male and female pupils.

She said: “Under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, admission authorities must not discriminate between boys and girls in the way they admit them to a school except where the school in question is a single sex school.

“The admission number for the school was agreed at the time it was established and as a mixed school it has a single admission number so pupils must be admitted in the order in which they meet the oversubscription criteria, irrespective of whether the applicant is male or female.  By sub-dividing and limiting the places to 60 for boys and 60 for girls, pupils of one gender who live nearer the school may be denied a place against the distance tie-breaker if there are more of that gender seeking a place compared with other applicants living further away if the school is less oversubscribed for places for the other gender.  The admission criteria seem to be applied as if there school were two separate schools, which is not what was approved.”

The adjudicator also criticised the school's statement on its supplementary application form that “no application will be accepted unless accompanied by a letter form the Imam of one of the Mosques specified on the school’s list”. The adjudicator said that while an application may not be considered for priority against the faith-based over-subscription criteria, it cannot be ignored in this way.

Schools designated by the Secretary of State as having a religious character (faith schools) are exempt from section 49 of the Equality Act 2006 which bans schools from discriminating against children on grounds of the child’s religion or belief. Faith schools are permitted to use faith-based over-subscription criteria in order to give higher priority in admissions to children who are members of, or who practise, their faith or denomination, but this only applies if the school is oversubscribed.

The school's chairman of governors Hussein Suleman told the Leicester Mercury that there was never any intention to exclude any Muslim group, and the school was already consulting on a revised admissions policy. "This is creating divisions which don't exist," he said and said that the school would comply with the ruling "without compromising our philosophy".