In a significant victory for religious freedom and free speech, a federal court has ruled in favor of a Christian teacher who was disciplined for refusing to use a student’s preferred transgender pronouns.
The case, which has garnered national attention, underscores the growing tension between individual rights and institutional mandates in the context of gender identity issues.
The court ruled that an Ohio school district violated the First Amendment rights of a Christian teacher, which experts are hailing as a victory for free speech and religious liberty.
Hired as a full-time English teacher at the end of the 2021 academic school year, Vivian Geraghty had resigned from her position in 2022 after being told to use a student’s “preferred pronouns.”
Geraghty, an apostolic Pentecostal, subsequently filed a lawsuit against the district, alleging violations of her First Amendment rights. She specifically said using “preferred pronouns would force her to embrace the concept of gender identity against her religious belief that God created two unchanging sexes, male and female.”
According to district court Judge Pamela Barker, the Jackson Local School District “compelled Geraghty to use the students’ preferred names and pronouns.” In doing so, it forced the teacher “to utter what was not in her mind about a question of political and religious significance.”
Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, posted on X that the court’s decision is “good news for freedom of belief.”
A federal court in Ohio just upheld a teacher's First Amendment claims against the use of preferred pronouns–a holding in keeping with other federal court rulings on similar claims.
Schools cannot force teachers, administrators, or students to use "preferred pronouns" when… pic.twitter.com/yDvlY4EbA0
— Sarah Parshall Perry (@SarahPPerry) August 21, 2024
“Schools cannot force teachers, administrators, or students to use ‘preferred pronouns’ when doing so would violate their beliefs—religious or otherwise,” she added. “Gender identity makes a rotten foundation for case law. More victories like this one are certain to come.”