Another school is paying the price for forcing teachers to participate in the “social transition” of students who express a gender identity inconsistent with their biological sex.
Last week, an Ohio school district agreed to fork over $450,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees to settle a federal lawsuit brought by Vivian Geraghty, the middle school teacher forced to resign because she refused to use her transgender students’ preferred names and pronouns on religious grounds. We covered the court’s earlier decision to send her case to the jury here.
Geraghty’s win follows news of a $575,000 settlement reached in a similar case brought by Virginia teacher Peter Vlaming against his school district, which we reported here. Vlaming was fired because he refused to use male pronouns for a female student. Both teachers are represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom. The group is getting great results in these cases, including another favorable settlement in Virginia, where the school agreed to grant religious accommodations to three teachers who objected to their school’s transgender policy, as reported by Fox News.
As I wrote earlier, preferred pronoun policies in the public school context—unlike, e.g., the health care setting, government workplaces, and universities—are not about mere “misgendering.” The subjects are minors, and using their preferred names and pronouns is part of “social transitioning,” the process that facilitates their decision to “become” the opposite sex. It also puts them on the path to permanent, life-altering medical transitioning.
Geraghty told her school principal she wanted no part of it and, within hours, according to the court filing, she was forced to resign and escorted out of the building.
Her lawsuit alleged the school made her quit because she refused to use the trans students’ preferred names and pronouns, in violation of her First Amendment rights, including free speech, compelled speech and free exercise of religion.
In its earlier ruling greenlighting the case for trial, the court signaled it would uphold the teacher’s civil rights claims. It agreed that the school’s name and pronoun practice amounted to compelled speech: Geraghty was allegedly forced to resign “not for what she said, but for what she refused to say,” District Judge Pamela Barker wrote this past August. She also concluded the school’s practice was not “neutral and generally applicable”; instead, it was using its evolving transgender policy as pretext for targeting Geraghty’s religious beliefs. And while there were still issues to be resolved at trial, the court’s opinion pointed to a win for Geraghty, should the jury find the facts in her favor.
Although the school district hasn’t agreed to change its transgender policy, the monetary settlement talks, ADF attorney Logan Spena explained to Fox News Digital. “It still sends a strong message that if you’re going to not respect the constitutional rights of teachers, it’s going to have a cost.”
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