Members of the Virginia Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in favor of a high school teacher who refused to comply with a school district preferred pronoun policy.
Peter Vlaming, who taught French for seven years at West Point Public Schools in Virginia, was fired after he informed administrators that he could not consent with a demand that he refer to a student with pronouns of the opposite sex, according to a press release from the Alliance Defending Freedom. The opinion from the Virginia Supreme Court said that no government can “lawfully coerce its citizens into pledging verbal allegiance to ideological views that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs,” which would violate the tenets of a constitutional republic.
Vlaming had attempted to use the new preferred name provided by the student while entirely avoiding the matter of pronouns, yet school administrators required him to cease avoiding pronouns, even when the student was not immediately present.
“Peter wasn’t fired for something he said; he was fired for something he couldn’t say. The Virginia Supreme Court rightly agreed that Peter’s case against the school board for violating his rights under the Virginia Constitution and state law should proceed,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Chris Schandevel remarked. “Peter was passionate about the subject he taught, was well-liked by his students, and did his best to accommodate their needs and requests. But he couldn’t in good conscience speak messages that he doesn’t believe to be true, and no school board or government official can punish someone for that reason.”
Justices of the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a lower circuit court had erred in dismissing the claim from Vlaming, a move made on the contention that his allegations were “insufficient as a matter of law to state a free-exercise claim,” according to the opinion.
The decision comes as Americans face increased pressure from corporations, government agencies, and other institutions to embrace preferred transgender pronouns, which skeptics say force users to disregard biological reality. The Sentinel reported earlier this year that the Social Security Administration required employees to watch a training which said the use of preferred pronouns was compulsory and threatened investigations for those deemed noncompliant.
