Victory: Ohio School District Will Pay Teacher $450k to Settle Lawsuit Over Transgender Policy
Earlier this year, the court signaled it would side with the teacher
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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Comments
I personally dont care about a religious accomodation
It should be a basic biological common sense accomodation
Transgendering any child is EVIL! – Josef Mengili evil!
“…in violation of her First Amendment rights, including free speech, compelled speech and free exercise of religion.”
As I always say, ‘These settlements are a start, but not enough. These bad actors in government who impose their anti-constitutional tyranny to deprive others their civil rights are shielded from any real consequences by the slush fund forced from the taxpayers’ wallets which pay for these massive settlements.
ABOLISH qualified immunity for these bad actors who must face personal criminal or civil punishment for their anti-constutional tyranny to deprive others their civil rights. You or I would be personally punished for such tyranny. The law must apply equally to these bad actors in government, or they will simply do it again when the coast is clear.
*stepping off my soapbox*
There is and always has been male and female those that want to change need mental institution help!!!!!
One should not have to use religion to get out of compelled speech. It’s wrong even without the involvement of religion.
Not when it’s government speech. It’s well established that K-12 teachers in the classroom are not speaking for themselves, they’re speaking for the school. And like any other employer, a government is entitled to require its employees, when speaking for it, to say what it wants and not what they want.
If the school wants this student to be called “Jane” and a teacher insists on calling him “John”, that is no different from the school wanting the teacher to teach about “climate change” or the Holocaust and the teacher refusing.
That’s why religion comes into it, because under many states’ RFRA laws employers must try to make reasonable accommodation for their employees’ religious practices. In this case it appears there was no attempt to do so.
These funds need to come directly from the pockets of the players involved, not the taxpayers. Its infuriating to see them skate effortlessly over their anti-constitutional acts.
Even politicians have to face the voters at some point.
Next up for ADF/allies: funding the suit by taxpayers against the district and recall efforts against its elected critters…
As a high school teacher, I believe that a better balance has to be struck on the teacher’s constitutional rights and his responsibilities to the school system that hires him. This case is a step in the right direction.
“Education” is as fallible as any other human institution, and hence needs its own checks and balances. A minor and unrelated issued can illustrate this.
I teach world history. I’m required to teach a few things about Africa in the course (to which I do not object). However, the textbook, in dealing with Usman Dan Fodio, the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate (now, mostly northern Nigeria). The textbook stated that he fought “European colonialists”–Yet Usman Dan Fodio died in 1817, long before the European Scramble for Africa was underway, and when his area of Africa was barely even known to Europeans. His real enemies were the Hausa townsmen who controlled the area and whose interests clashed with Usman’s fellow Fulani herders. Obviously, the textbooks writers themselves knew little of Africa save some post-1960’s anticolonial narratives and mythologies of a primordial African solidarity, and read them back into a past event. I wrote to the publishers pointing out these things.
But this wasn’t the only error I’ve found in textbooks and curricula. I believe that if a teacher has a better knowledge of his subject, he is under a moral duty to bring this to the attention of his charges (especially if he is teaching high school, as I do, where inculcating critical thinking skills is part of his job.
The difficulty in the case mentioned in the OP is the care that needs to be taken in dealing with vulnerable students. A lot of the time, people are tough enough to take challenges posed to their various identities. However, a problem in dealing with “trans” people is that while it’s often a matter of adolescent goofiness trying to shock the older generation (and can take a challenge thrown right back at it), it is sometimes symptomatic of a very badly damaged and traumatized psyche.
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