Teacher Wins $650K Settlement After Refusing To Use ‘Preferred Pronouns’
He refused to use transgender pronouns – now the school district is going to pay a $650,000 settlement to end the lawsuit.
An Indiana school district will pay $650,000 to end a lengthy legal battle after one of its schools tried to coerce a Christian teacher into using made-up pronouns for its gender-confused students.
Music teacher John Kluge is a practicing Christian and minister at a local church. In 2017, school officials mandated that all teachers recognize any sexual identity their students claimed. This entailed using their “preferred pronouns.”
After meeting with administrators, Kluge reached a reasonable compromise. While he would not use someone’s incorrect pronouns, as that would violate his faith, he could use their last name. He compared this to how a coach would refer to his players.
While this compromise briefly worked, school officials later reneged on the agreement and ultimately forced him out of a job in 2018.
The firing led to a subsequent federal lawsuit, filed by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), about five and a half years ago. The district decided to settle the lawsuit rather than face an upcoming trial, according to ADF.
“This settlement confirms what the law has always said: Public schools cannot force teachers to violate their religious beliefs,” Senior Counsel David Cortman stated in a news release.
The 2023 Supreme Court case Groff v. DeJoy strengthened Kluge’s arguments. In that case, the majority ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires employers to provide religious accommodations unless they can prove a “substantial” not de minimis cost.
“Title VII requires employers to accommodate their employees’ religious beliefs and practices,” Cortman, the ADF attorney, stated.
This high school music teacher was forced to resign in 2018 because he wouldn’t refer to girls as boys.
Now, to settle @ADFLegal’s lawsuit, the school district will pay $650,000.
One case at a time, we’re taking free speech back from the pronoun police. pic.twitter.com/W1iTlUjhrD
— Kristen Waggoner (@KristenWaggoner) March 3, 2026
The religious liberty group said the settlement is proof teachers “do not have to bow the knee to ideological mandates that violate their religious beliefs.”
Alliance Defending Freedom also said the district agreed to train administrators on the religious rights of employees under Title VII.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita also celebrated the settlement, calling it a “VICTORY for religious liberty” in the state.
“No teacher in Indiana should ever be compelled by government schools to deny their sincerely held beliefs just to keep their job,” the attorney general wrote on X.
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Comments
I’m glad this young man won this case, but the truth to me as far as I see is we live in a country of legalism now.
Everything is a court challenge, everything is some rule or some law needing to be passed.
How about just a country of normalcy?
Whatever happened to normal?
“Whatever happened to normal?”
The leftists ate it.
“The leftists are it”
I hear they have a shot for that now.
Whatever happened to normal? Democrats, socialist, communists Killed it. This also includes the education system by giving certain groups grades that they did not earn; rejecting students based on the color of their skin; and judges who let major criminals, walk, free.
The problem is that “normal” has an Overton Window. It had moved far, far, to the Left. It will take a long time to get back to what we here consider reasonable
the taxpayers are going to pay……
so nothing stops lefty other than violence
and in this case
personal out of their pockets violence
thats not happening
so a victory lap is somewhat muted
we must stop feeding the cancer that is destroying america
I missed the outrage from the public at having to expend three quarters of a million dollars to a fired teacher for not only violating his religious beliefs but also refusing to believe perhaps the most obvious difference on the face of the planet – boys and girls.
If you one day decide that you’re actually a girl but you were born with dangly bits, I’m not obliged to join you in your delusion, never mind lose my job over it.
Yup. The lie is the point – and at the core of these bathroom wars. These mentally ill crossdressers lie to themselves about who/what they immutably are, lie to others about it, then demand others lie on their behalf to enble/ affirm their lie.
I refuse to lie. Live not by lies. The state of Kansas recently concured: mentally ill crossdressers cannot lie on state government forms (like a DL) about who they are.
I agreed online w/ Kansas and was bombarded with ‘leave the trannzies alone hater!’
I responded, ‘I won’t lie for them.’ But apparently, a lot of brain dead morons prefer a lie to the truth.
We are at war. Prepare accordingly.
Yeah this is the point. Why would I as a taxpayer be forced to pay. Take it out of the administrator and school board’s hide. Remove immunity. Let them carry insurance paid by them or suffer the financial penalty. It is their policy. And I don’t care that the school board was elected, Tough nuggies. You want to enforce a far left position (or far right for that matter) then you have to suffer the consequences.
I don’t think the school settled… is it that their insurer who was defending them settled?
And the insurer will deliver a clear message that this nonsense will have to stop or coverage will be cancelled.
We need thousands of these wins nationwide to end this. Ditto large malpractice awards against the medical professionals supporting “gender affirming” care. That’s what will end this disgraceful nonsense forever.
The main virtue of decisions like this is that parents and other taxpayers are reminded that education via government bureaucracy was and is and always shall be a Very Bad Idea. But many persist in believing that such an “education” is “free”.
Get the children out. Now.
“While this compromise briefly worked, school officials later reneged on the agreement and ultimately forced him out of a job in 2018.”
Alternative headline: Indiana School District Officials to be Criminally Prosecuted for Violating Civil Rights Act 1964 & Egregious Deprivation of Rights (18 USC 242) against Former Teacher Who Refused to Lie for a Mentally Ill Student.
Ok. That’s a bit wordy, and regrettably did not happen in this case, but I am a broken record: unless these school/uni admins are criminally prosecuted for these egregious and repeated civil rights violations, it’s still just **clown world ** where they will do it again because these admins will face no real consequences as tax payers are forced to fund their crimes.
All taxable, fed and state.
The board could care less…. It’s either insurance or the taxpayers…
Once again, I object to the idea that the entire basis of this win is that ‘Title VII requires employers to accommodate their employees’ religious beliefs and practices’
NO.
Religion is not the only reason.
This ‘preferred pronoun’ crap is just that, PREFERRED, not ‘mandatory’. ANYBODY should be allowed to refuse to use them, period, religion doesn’t enter into it.
Continue to hit these leftists in the pocket book! Same playbook used against KKK & other extremist activists. Put em out of business!
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