Federal court rules that Christian teacher was illegally forced out for refusing to use preferred pronouns

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In a win for free expression and religious liberty, an Ohio school district is scolded for compelling a teacher — at the cost of her job — to say words and advance ideas that went against her deeply held religious beliefs.

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The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division last month ruled that a local school district violated the First Amendment rights of a Christian teacher when it forced her to use students’ preferred pronouns. 

Vivian Geraghty, who took a job in 2021 as a long-term substitute teacher at Jackson Memorial Middle School in Massillon, Ohio, resigned a year later after the school told her she had to address two transgender students by pronouns that didn’t line up with their biological sex.

Geraghty, who is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, argued in court filings that the use of pronouns that did not reflect the sex listed on the student’s birth certificate would require her to “embrace the concept of gender identity against her religious belief that God created two unchanging sexes, male and female.”

The conflict began during the first week of school in 2022. At the time, Geraghty knew that the students’ requests were part of a gender transition process but felt that her religious beliefs did not allow her to call the students by any other pronouns other than the ones consistent with the gender listed on the student’s birth certificates.

Officials with the Jackson Local School District then called Geraghty to a series of meetings, leading up to the school’s principal asking for her resignation letter if she continued to refuse to address the students the way the school wanted her to.

Geraghty soon thereafter brought a suit against the school district, arguing that school officials don’t have the authority to force staff to adopt the government’s beliefs on gender and sexuality and that they violated her free speech and religious liberty rights when they tried to force her them to address students according to their preferred pronouns.

Judge Pamela Barker agreed, writing in her decision that district officials had “compelled Geraghty to use the students’ preferred names and pronouns” and, by doing so, required the teacher “to utter what was not in her mind about a question of political and religious significance.”

Barker also determined that the “compelled speech” of calling someone by their preferred pronouns was not “under Geraghty’s ordinary job duties” and that the district’s name and pronoun practice was “not neutral and generally applied,” finding that the school district had singled her out unfairly for her religious beliefs.

However, Barker also ruled that the case must ultimately go before a jury to examine the facts behind Geraghty’s resignation and determine whether or not it was forced, as well as whether or not the First Amendment protects Geraghty’s decision to refuse to call students by their preferred names.

The school district has said they will not comment on impending legislation. However, they believe that the lawsuit should have been dismissed because Geraghty did not pursue “administrative remedies” available to her under the Jackson Memorial Education Association’s collective bargaining agreement. ADF, meanwhile, cited the First Amendment as their defense.

Sarah Parshall Perry, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, argued that it was “good news for freedom of belief, but bad news for schools trying to implement the Title IX “Final Rule,” which has been blocked from taking effect by numerous federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Perry called Barker’s ruling a “victory against the hydra of compelled speech under the guise of ‘safety and inclusion” for students (who are identifying as) transgender” and that “gender identity makes a rotten foundation for case law.”

The implications of this case strike at the heart of religious liberty for all Americans. As Tyson Langhofer, senior counsel and director of ADF’s Center for Academic Freedom, put it,

“Jackson Local School District officials require their teachers to immediately and personally validate a child’s gender transition even if doing so violates their religious beliefs, conscience, or sound judgment.”

By ruling in favor of Geraghty’s freedom of speech rights under the First Amendment, Judge Barker has fulfilled her constitutional role of being a check on the state’s power — in particular, its desire to compel teachers to engage in speech that reflects its own preferred, secular religion.

Christian evangelist and author Voddie Baucham argues that the concept of “Cultural Marxism” is driven not by a desire to pursue truth but by redefining cultural norms, including freedom of speech, to attain power.

We see elements of that in local school districts requiring their teachers to use only the speech that they approve of. As a result, engaging in the exercise of “preferred pronouns” under the guise of “equity” and “equality” is a cover for the state-sponsored assault on religious liberty, as nothing holds a more significant threat to the state’s monopoly on power than an adherence to the moral standard of a sovereign God.

With this in mind, Christians have a non-negotiable duty to be involved in politics in order to protect innocent people such as Geraghty, who are just trying to do their job by educating the next generation without compromising on their sincerely held religious beliefs.

Americans are uniquely gifted by God with the ability to participate in their government and help decide who represents us in that government.

As such, we should make the most of those privileges by knowing who represents our local school board districts and understanding their positions on the issues. When possible, we must vote for school board members and other office candidates who take common sense and biblical approaches to issues like freedom of speech, parental rights, and religious liberty. And then we must hold those officials accountable to do what they have promised to do.

By discharging our civic duties, we will be acting as good and faithful stewards of the next generation, rather than as wicked and faithful servants, hiding our talents and failing our children (Matthew 25:14-30).

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As seen in this article, many K-12 schools now embrace the secular woke agenda and are hostile to Christian beliefs and parental rights. Fortunately, parents don’t have to settle for this. Liberty University Online Academy is a K-12 program designed to educate your children in the ways of the Lord while preparing them to stand firm in their faith when they graduate. Our flexible online curriculum ensures that your student is trained at your convenience and keeps YOU the ultimate educator of your children.