Federal Court Backs Christian Teacher Who Refused To Call Kids by Transgender ‘Identity’

Of course, unsurprisingly, she's a Republican, appointed by a Republican President. At least sanity has prevailed for now, but what will the Sixth Circuit say?

From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Barker ruled that an Ohio school district violated Vivian Geraghty's constitutional rights to freedom of speech and religion under the First Amendment by trying to force her to accommodate two students' request to be addressed by opposite-sex 'gender identities.'

Jackson Local School District (JLSD) in Ohio violated the First Amendment rights of a Christian English teacher when it tried to force her to recognize the “transgender” names and pronouns of confused students, U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Barker ruled.

As covered previously by LifeSiteNews, Vivian Geraghty filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the district, Principal Kacy Carter, Superintendent Christopher DiLoreto, and curriculum director Monica Myers after she was forced out of her job following an incident in which two students asked to be addressed by their opposite-sex “gender identities.”

According to the lawsuit, when she asked Carter how to handle this situation, he “was initially unable to tell Ms. Geraghty exactly what her obligations were” but said “his own practice was to refrain from using any pronouns to refer to students who express gender identities inconsistent with their sex.” Myers later got involved, told her to put her “religious convictions aside,” and Carter eventually ordered her to write a resignation letter.

“Ms. Geraghty’s faith teaches her that God immutably creates each person as male or female; these two distinct, complementary sexes reflect the image of God,” said attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represented her, at the time. 

Now, the Washington Stand reported that Barker has sided with Geraghty, finding that JLSD “compelled Geraghty to use the students’ preferred names and pronouns,” forcing her “to utter what was not in her mind about a question of political and religious significance” in violation of the First Amendment’s guarantees to freedom of speech and free exercise of religion.

“It’s good to see the court affirm this teacher’s First Amendment rights in this case,” reacted Arielle Del Turco, director of the Family Research Council’s Center for Religious Liberty. “Teachers should not face compelled speech in favor of one ideological perspective which violates their deeply held religious beliefs. This is what the school did by trying to force a Christian teacher to use preferred gender pronouns that did not correspond with students’ biological sex.”

The indoctrination of children with left-wing ideology on sexuality and other left-wing agenda items has long been a major concern in American public schools, from libraries to athletic and restroom policy to drag events to classroom materials to even socially “transitioning” troubled children without parental input. Many schools have also displayed hostility to the rights and employment of individual teachers who refuse to go along with such agendas, regardless of their treatment of or rapport with gender-confused students.

The issue, along with political messaging more generally in taxpayer-funded education, has fueled a parent backlash that has been credited with Republican gains in states like Florida and Virginia, whose current respective governors have taken leading roles in fighting back.

Pictured: The Hon. Pamela A. Barker, Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio