{"id":6711,"date":"2024-07-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2024\/07\/01\/parsing-the-pronoun-wars\/"},"modified":"2024-07-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T00:00:00","slug":"parsing-the-pronoun-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2024\/07\/01\/parsing-the-pronoun-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Parsing the Pronoun Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"

A state court resists an all-or-nothing approach.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Controversy continues in courts across the nation over pronoun use for transgender students in public schools. It\u2019s a controversy that state legislatures are increasingly engaged with as well. In April, for instance, Colorado adopted a law\u2014which is certainly likely to be challenged\u2014requiring teachers to use students\u2019 preferred pronouns regardless of their own ethical or religious beliefs.<\/span><\/p>\n

A recent decision by the Supreme Court of Virginia, though, suggests a potential way forward in dealing with what has become a hot-button cultural and political issue. In <\/span>Vlaming v. West Point Board of Education<\/span><\/i>, decided December 14, 2023, the court upheld freedom of religion, conscience, and speech. Relying on Virginia law, the court reinstated the claims of a high school teacher, Peter Vlaming, who was fired because he was unwilling to call a biological female known as John Doe, who was transitioning to male, by the student\u2019s preferred male pronouns.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Zero-Sum Attitude<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vlaming, a popular sixth-year French teacher at West Point High School, about 35 miles east of Richmond, consistently earned positive evaluations resulting in his achieving continuing contract, or tenured, status. However, conflict arose early in the fall of 2018 when Vlaming learned that Doe wanted to be identified by masculine pronouns. To avoid violating his faith while accommodating, and not offending, Doe, Vlaming used the masculine French name he assigned Doe in class in lieu of a pronoun. To limit the risk of Doe feeling singled out, Vlaming also rarely, if ever, used third-person pronouns to refer to any students during class or while the student being referred to was present. Outside of Doe\u2019s presence Vlaming referred to Doe using pronouns aligned with Doe\u2019s biological sex.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Doe complained, administrators trammeled Vlaming\u2019s religious rights, charging him with insubordination for noncompliance with their written directive to use the student\u2019s preferred pronouns. On December 6, 2018\u2014a few weeks after school officials suspended Vlaming\u2014the school board voted 5-0 to fire him, ignoring an outpouring of support from students and parents for the teacher.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Vlaming sued the school board and administrators, most notably for violating his free exercise, free speech, and due process rights under Virginia\u2019s constitution and statutes, a trial court in Virginia dismissed his claims as meritless.<\/span><\/p>\n

On appeal, reversing in favor of Vlaming, the state\u2019s high court found that \u201cin the Commonwealth of Virginia, the constitutional right to free exercise of religion is among the \u2018natural and unalienable rights of mankind.\u2019\u2005\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rejecting the board\u2019s argument that Vlaming forfeited his free exercise rights at work, the high court declared that Virginia\u2019s constitution \u201cseeks to protect diversity of thought, diversity of speech, diversity of religion, and diversity of opinion.\u201d The court specified that \u201cabsent a truly compelling reason for doing so, no government committed to these principles can lawfully coerce its citizens into pledging verbal allegiance to ideological views that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Continuing on, the court explained that \u201cit is a \u2018cardinal constitutional command\u2019 that government coercion, even when indirect, cannot constitutionally compel individuals to \u2018mouth support\u2019 for religious, political, or ideological views that they do not believe.\u201d The court added that \u201ccompelling an educator\u2019s \u2018speech or silence\u2019 on such a divisive issue would cast \u2018a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom\u2019 on a topic that has \u2018produced a passionate political and social debate.\u2019\u2005\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The court pointed out that because Vlaming\u2019s \u201cfree-speech claims involve an allegation of compelled speech on an ideological subject, we hold that the circuit court erred when it dismissed Vlaming\u2019s free-speech claims.\u201d Consistent with 2023\u2019s <\/span>303 Creative v. Elenis<\/span><\/i>, wherein the Supreme Court ruled that a Christian wedding website designer in Colorado could not be compelled to offer her services to a same-sex couple, the Virginia panel observed that the board could not require Vlaming to speak in a way offensive to his conscience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Emphasizing that Vlaming\u2019s dismissal violated his due process rights under Virginia\u2019s constitution, the court commented that \u201cno clearly established law\u2014whether constitutional, statutory, or regulatory\u2014put a teacher on notice that not using third-person pronouns in addition to preferred names constituted an unlawful act of discrimination. . . . If the government truly means to compel speech, the compulsion must be clear and direct.\u201d Moreover, the court noted that the board breached Vlaming\u2019s contract in firing him for asserting his rights to free exercise, free speech, and the Virgiania\u2019s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (VRFRA).<\/span><\/p>\n

All seven members of the court agreed to reinstate Vlaming\u2019s free exercise claims.<\/p>\n

Growing Judicial Consensus<\/strong><\/p>\n

Earlier in 2023, in Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Corporation<\/i>, the Seventh Circuit vacated its original opinion upholding the dismissal of a teacher in Indiana who referred to students by their last names, rather than their preferred pronouns, because of his religious beliefs objecting to transgenderism. The court relied on 2023 Supreme Court precedent from Groff v. DeJoy,<\/i> requiring the U.S. Postal Service to accommodate an employee by granting him time off for worship on Sundays. In its brief 130-word opinion the court found that the board violated the teacher\u2019s rights by failing to accommodate his religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

Previously, in 2021, in Meriwether v. Hartop<\/i>, the Sixth Circuit upheld the right of a faculty member in Ohio to not violate his religious beliefs by using pronouns with which he disagreed. Reversing an earlier order in their favor, the court reasoned that officials transgressed a Christian faculty member\u2019s right to academic freedom in sending him a written reprimand over his alleged noncompliance with university policies mandating that instructional staff address transgender students by their preferred pronouns reflecting their asserted gender identities. Viewed synoptically, Vlaming<\/i>, Meriwether<\/i>, and Kluge<\/i> agreed that directing educators to use pronouns inconsistent with their faiths violated their constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

Case Reflections<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amid emerging judicial consensus, hopefully legislative responses will address pronoun use respecting freedom of religion, conscience, and speech. Doe and others who are transgender certainly have the right to live as they wish. Even so, advocates cannot ignore the twin freedoms of religion and speech by seeking to compel others to communicate using words with which they disagree, especially if their objections are faith-based. The key is for all to respect the diversity of opinion of which the Vlaming<\/i> court wrote instead of demanding rigid conformity to one viewpoint.<\/p>\n

Whether Vlaming <\/i>is a game-changer remains to be seen because, having been resolved under Virginia law, it is unlikely to impact federal precedent. Still, Vlaming<\/i> can be a trendsetter if people of good will on both sides of this challenging issue take the court\u2019s rationale to heart by demonstrating respect for freedom of religion and speech, bedrocks of our constitutional system, along with mutual tolerance for differences of opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A state court resists an all-or-nothing approach. Controversy continues in courts across the nation over pronoun use for transgender students in public schools. It\u2019s a controversy that state legislatures are increasingly engaged with as well. In April, for instance, Colorado adopted a law\u2014which is certainly likely to be challenged\u2014requiring teachers to use students\u2019 preferred pronouns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[360],"tags":[192],"class_list":["post-6711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-july-august-2024","tag-july-august-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}