The school board of West Point Public Schools in Virginia agreed to pay $575,000 in damages and attorney fees for Peter Vlaming, a high school teacher who was dismissed after refusing to comply with a preferred pronoun policy because of his Christian convictions on sexual ethics.

Vlaming, who taught French for seven years at West Point Public Schools, had been 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. Members of the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in his favor last year, writing in their decision that no government can “lawfully coerce its citizens into pledging verbal allegiance to ideological views that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Vlaming in court, revealed earlier this week that West Point Public Schools committed to pay the $575,000 settlement to cover damages and attorney fees, remove the dismissal from his record, and conform their policies to standards in the state which “respect fundamental free speech and parental rights.”

“I was wrongfully fired from my teaching job because my religious beliefs put me on a collision course with school administrators who mandated that teachers ascribe to only one perspective on gender identity, their preferred view,” Vlaming said in a statement. “I loved teaching French and gracefully tried to accommodate every student in my class, but I couldn’t say something that directly violated my conscience. I’m very grateful for the work of my attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom to bring my case to victory, and hope it helps protect every other teacher.”

Vlaming had indeed refused to utilize pronouns for a student which did not match the actual sex of that student, instead using the preferred name of that student while avoiding pronouns altogether. He was nevertheless ordered by school administrators to “stop avoiding the use of pronouns to refer to the student, even when the student wasn’t present, and to start using pronouns inconsistent with the student’s sex,” according to the Alliance Defending Freedom.

The lawsuit and settlement in Virginia occur as more Americans face increased pressure from major corporations, government agencies, and other institutions to embrace preferred transgender pronouns, which skeptics say force users to disregard objective biological reality.