Christian nurse to sue clinic over course that said Bible was racist for mentioning ‘darkness’
A NURSE studying at one of Britain’s leading mental health clinics claims she was told to watch lectures and read essays that branded Christianity a racist religion and blamed the Bible for racism because of references to ‘darkness’ and ‘light’.
Amy Gallagher, a Christian from South London, is preparing legal action against the Portman Clinic in North London, part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, over what she feels was religious and racial discrimination in a course she undertook during clinical training in psychotherapy.
Ms Gallagher alleges that:
● She was told to watch an online lecture saying Christianity was part of the European oppression of black people;
● She was asked to attend an online seminar called Whiteness – A Problem For Our Time, which claimed that all white people are racist;
● She was told to read an essay called The Criminalisation Of Blackness which blamed the Bible for creating so-called unconscious bias;
● After raising concerns, she was threatened with suspension from her final year and told her career as a psychotherapist could be at risk.
Ms Gallagher said: ‘On what I’ve experienced, what they describe as anti-racism is racism.
‘What they describe as tolerance is intolerance.’
This weekend she launched a crowdfunding campaign she has called Stand Up To Woke to help pay for her legal battle against the Trust, which she plans to sue for racial and religious discrimination, harassment and bullying.
Ms Gallagher, 33, enrolled on the Portman Clinic’s Forensic Psychodynamic Psychotherapy course in September 2020 to finish clinical training that would qualify her to set up a psychotherapy practice. She became concerned when students were given a compulsory online lecture on race and racism by forensic psychoanalyst Dr Anne Aiyegbusi.
Ms Gallagher said: ‘The lecturer spoke negatively about Christianity, while no other religions were mentioned. When I questioned this, I was told the Trust sees Christianity as responsible for racism because it is European.’
Ms Gallagher claims the lecture was ‘politically biased’ with ‘little or no reference to psychotherapy’.
She and other students were then asked to attend a seminar online by psychoanalyst Helen Morgan, called Whiteness: A Problem For Our Time, which concluded that white people are unconsciously racist. The lecture, examining ‘white privilege and white fragility’, is promoted on the Tavistock’s website as a seminar to mark its centenary. The online description said: ‘This presentation is rooted in the assumption that the problem of racism is a problem of whiteness.’
It added: ‘The colour-blind approach and the silencing process of disavowal that develops in the childhood of white liberal families are a means of maintaining white privilege and racism.’
Ms Gallagher explained she did not consider herself racist and that she took a ‘colour-blind’ approach – she did not judge people by their skin colour – but was told that this was ‘outdated’. ‘I started to feel I was essentially being asked to subscribe to a racist ideology,’ she said.
Then, in March last year, she was directed towards a text on the course reading list called The Criminalisation Of Blackness. ‘It talked about the Bible’s use of the words light and dark and said this causes people to be racist in their unconscious,’ she said.
‘The use of light and dark is used in all major world religions, and there is no evidence the Bible’s use of those terms causes racism.’
In May she received a letter from the Trust raising concerns about her allegedly ‘vexatious’ conduct, adding that it might have ‘implications for your ability to obtain professional registration’.
Last night The Tavistock said: ‘This matter has been addressed through our formal complaints process, which has now concluded.’
It insists that a standard approach on the psychotherapy course is that students must examine their own ‘irrational unconscious beliefs and bias’ to be able to help patients.
The Trust published its final investigation into Ms Gallagher’s complaints in October. The report said that Dr Aiyegbusi realised her lecture had been ‘intense’ but said it was ‘undeniable’ that ‘Europe in the name of Christianity was instrumental in the racism, slavery and colonialism that has a linear connection to what we see today in forensic services’.
It upheld the Trust’s view that Ms Gallagher had been ‘excessively and inappropriately confrontational’ when raising concerns – something she rejects.
It denied her progress had been compromised by her views.
The Mail on Sunday knows of no other similar complaints.
Ms Gallagher, who is still on the course, says she is concerned that radical identity politics are ‘leaking into the health service’, adding: ‘To be told I might not be able to become a psychotherapist because I don’t think Christianity is racist, and I don’t think all white people are racist, is quite extreme.’
‘What they describe as anti-racism is racism’