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The college insisted that its decision to sack an English teacher following a row over his lecture was “not an issue of free speech”. Will Knowland was fired after he “persistently refused” to remove a video of his lecture from the internet, according to a spokesman for the school.

The Head Master was reportedly left with “no choice” but to sack the English teacher.

Last week, Mr Knowland was dismissed for gross misconduct after he recorded a lecture which questioned “current radical feminist orthodoxy”.

The lecture was part of a course taken by older students to help them think critically about topics debated in the public.

It was posted online but never delivered to student as he intended.

Mr Knowland, however, claimed that Eton banned him from delivering the lecture to students and only dismissed him when he refused to remove the video from his YouTube account.

On Friday, the school said its lawyers had advised the college that parts of the lecture went against the Equalities Act.

The lawyers said it also went against regulations that govern standards at independent schools.

A spokesman for Eton College said: “There was simply no other choice than to ask for it to be taken down.”

The move has sparked a freedom of speech row at the £42,000-a-year school.

More than 1,000 children have reportedly signed a petition demanding that Mr Knowland is reinstated.

The petition claimed that the school had acted in a “heartless and merciless” way over its dismissal of Mr Knowland.

A source told The Telegraph: “Eton has moved in quite an aggressively woke direction.

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“It has very much come from the top with the new head. A lot of the teaching staff do not like it.

“What sort of person wants to teach at Eton? It is not your typical comprehensive school.

“They tend to be pretty highly qualified and they tend to have a strong belief in institutions”.

Eton’s Head Master, Simon Henderson, took on his role five years ago and has since been nicknamed “Trendy Hendy”.

He has reportedly set out to make cultural change at the 580-year-old school.

Mr Henderson has created a new role of Director of Inclusion Education at the school to manage diversity efforts.

He also appointed the first ever female to the position of Lower Master or deputy head of the school.

Another source told the Telegraph that Mr Henderson “feels strongly” about changing the perception of Eton College as an “old fashioned pillar of social and male elitism”.

But they said the “general view is that he has got it wrong on this one”.

Over the weekend, Mr Henderson wrote to parents to say he is “acutely aware” of their concern about the situation.

The school said: “The school made the reasonable request that the teacher temporarily remove it pending further discussion, but despite multiple requests and then instructions he persistently refused to do so.

“At that stage, an internal disciplinary process began and the disciplinary panel determined that the master’s actions represented gross misconduct which should result in dismissal.”

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