Student awarded €9,000 as school's ear piercing policy found to be discriminatory
A 16-year-old Transition Year student has won €9,000 in compensation for gender-based discrimination and victimisation after he was punished for wearing an ear piercing to school at the start of term last year.
The Workplace Relations Commission has ruled that his school's uniform policy was indirectly discriminatory on gender grounds, favouring female students over males by requiring ear piercings to be worn in pairs - and has ordered the rule changed.
The decision on the boy's claim against the school under the Equal Status Act 2000 was published this morning by the tribunal in anonymised form. The school had denied his claim.
The student, who is in Transition Year, arrived to school at the start of the new term on 30 August 2024 with the upper cartilage of his left ear newly pierced and a round silver stud through it, the tribunal heard at hearings in November and December 2024.
The school considered it to be in breach of the uniform rules in its code of behaviour, which forbids "all body piercings except one small stud in each ear", the tribunal heard.
"I think their intention is that boys don't wear studs… I think they know boys won't pierce the other ear because they'll be called gay, they'll be called names. They won't go through the hassle of it, and they'll take it out," the claimant told the Workplace Relations Commission at a hearing December last.
Asked why he chose to wear the ear stud, the young man said: "It's my grandad - it's a sense of my personality, following in the footsteps."
The student's solicitor, Gerard Cullen, said his client was presented with choices to either "remove the stud or pierce the other ear" or complete the three-week healing process with a plaster covering the piercing. He called that "interference with bodily integrity".
Counsel for the school Kevin Roche BL, appearing instructed by Mason Hayes and Curran, said that after the young man instructed a solicitor in the matter, he had been sent a legal letter to say he would be considered to be "in compliance" if he "covered the ear with plaster".
He said that had already been offered to the young man, and rejected.
The boy's grandmother told the tribunal her husband and all of her sons had worn piercings in their left ears, and that she considered this the usual practice for a man to wear one.
"I suppose it's a bit like a woman wearing a wedding ring on her left hand," she said. "If they don't like studs, ban them all. [Boys] are going to be called a sissy, and it's not fair," she said.
A row broke out at a meeting between the boy and his family and the principal and deputy principal on 4 September 2024, when the claimant's mother and grandmother came to the school, the tribunal heard.
The complainant's case is that in the weeks that followed he was subject to sanctions, including being placed sitting outside the principal's office, being denied leave to go down to the town on his lunch break, and being assigned to evening detention which would have meant missing his bus home.
The school's position is that it followed its disciplinary code at all times and sought to de-escalate the matter - with its barrister telling the tribunal that the first mention of legal action was on the part the complainant's solicitor.
In his decision, adjudicator Brian Dalton wrote that the "apparently neutral" rule on ear studs was discriminatory on the grounds of gender.
He added that since the claimant had complained about that rule being unfair, it followed that the sanctions "solely arose because of [his] objection to an unfair practice" and amounted to victimisation.
As well as the "heated exchange" in the principal's office, the young man had been subject to sanctions "disproportionate to the alleged rule breached". Mr Dalton concluded they amounted to victimisation and harassment.
These included being left sitting outside the principal's office, detention, and restrictions on leaving the school at lunchtime.
"This treatment solely arose because the student complained against the rule that I have determined to be discriminatory, as it favours females over males," he wrote.
Mr Dalton ordered the school to amend its rule on body piercings "so that it facilitates the wearing of one or two earrings".
He directed the school to pay €9,000 in compensation to the young man.
Mr Dalton directed that the sum be paid to the claimant's mother and "be held by her comparable to a trust until he reaches the age of 18, and prior to that date to be used for his education as she sees fit".
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