free speech

Ohio School District Violated Teacher’s Rights in ‘Transgender’ Case

Vivian Geraghty taught English at Jackson Memorial Middle School in Massillon, Ohio. She was forced to resign for refusing to use the “preferred name and pronouns” of two transgender-identified students who were “socially transitioning,” due to her belief in the fact that there are only two sexes – male and female. 

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a complaint on her behalf, and the Jackson Local School District has agreed to pay $450,000 in damages and attorney’s fees for violating Geraghty’s free speech.

It’s the third victory in a row for ADF, which describes itself as “an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.”

As the Daily Citizen has reported, it’s yet another victory for ADF as it seeks to protect the First Amendment rights of teachers. The legal aid group also represented four Virginia teachers, in two separate cases, who won victories over school districts with transgender policies that forced teachers to participate in students’ “gender transitions.”

ADF Legal Counsel Logan Spena said of Geraghty’s victory:

No school official can force a teacher to set her religious beliefs aside in order to keep her job. The school tried to force Vivian to accept and repeat the school’s viewpoint on issues that go to the foundation of morality and human identity, like what makes us male or female, by ordering her to personally participate in the social transition of her students.
The First Amendment prohibits that abuse of power, and Jackson Local School District officials have learned that comes at a steep cost. Vivian resisted this unconstitutional demand and explained that her Christian faith made her unable to participate in her students’ social transition, and she has received just vindication for taking this stand.

According to Geraghty’s initial complaint, “Two of her students were asking to be addressed by different names and/or pronouns to signify that they had ‘transitioned’ to a gender that was inconsistent with their sex,” and she was “instructed by a school official to personally participate in that ‘social transition.’”

Because of her “scientific understanding and her Christian faith,” she knows there are only two sexes. She also knows there’s been a huge increase in the number of adolescents and teens identifying as something other than their sex.

Geraghty also knows the harms from affirming children’s sexual identity confusion, as the complaint explained:

Ms. Geraghty understands that many children who at some point express a gender identity inconsistent with their sex will eventually return to expressing an identity in harmony with their sex. For these children, all forms of treatment – whether psychosocial or medical – that “validate” the gender identity inconsistent with the child’s sex are harmful, but irreversible forms of treatment are the most harmful.

She went to the school principal, Kacy Carter, hoping to reach “a solution that would allow her to continue teaching without violating her religious beliefs and constitutional rights.”

When school officials found out that religion, as well as science, undergirded her belief in two sexes, she was told to set aside her faith. She refused to do this and was forced to resign – just two hours after she had gone to speak with them.

Now, Jackson Local School District is paying the price for violating her religious liberty and freedom of speech.

Science is clear that humans come in two types, male and female, based on their reproductive capacity. Transgenderism is a pseudoscientific ideology, completely disconnected from reality.

And Scripture is clear that God made humans male and female, and both men and women reflect His image. To deny this is an affront to God as the creator and sustainer of life.

Yet schools across the nation deny this reality, threatening parents’ rights, undermining the free speech and religious freedom of educators, and refusing to guard the privacy and safety of students.

Parents Defending Education reported that as of October 30, more than 1,143 school districts have transgender policies, covering almost 21,000 schools with 12.3 million students. Such policies may require educators to lie to parents and hide a child’s sexual identity confusion, force school staff to use “preferred names and pronouns,” and allow students to use restrooms and play sports based on their transgender identification.

Until school boards and administrators come to their senses, ADF – and other legal aid groups – will have plenty of opportunities to go after school districts with these radical transgender policies.

Related articles and resources:

Here are some groups providing legal aid, information and assistance to protect free speech, religious freedom and parental rights in education:

Christian Professor Wins $400,000 Settlement in Compelled Personal Pronouns Case

‘Equipping Parents For Back-To-School’ – Updated Resource Empowers Parents  

Even Hard-Boiled Evolutionists are Standing Strong Against Gender Madness

Free Speech Victory for Virginia Teacher Fired Over ‘Transgender’ Pronoun Policy

There is No Pride in Denying Reality or the Image of God in Humanity

Transgender Resources

Teacher Wrongly Fired for Refusing to Use ‘Preferred Pronouns’ Wins $575,000

Virginia School District Will Respect Teachers’ Religious Freedom and Speech What’s Your School District’s ‘Transgender’ Policy?

Image from Shutterstock.

‘Pride’ and Black Lives Matter Flags to Become School Symbols

A Colorado school board is poised to make the “Pride” and Black Lives Matter (BLM) flags symbols of their public school district — just one month after trying to ban them.

Durango School District 9-R ordered teachers to remove the flags from schools in October, The Durango Herald reports, after a parent complained they violated the district’s ban on political speech. The edict elicited fierce backlash, including a student walkout, a public protest and animated pushback at a board meeting.

Last week, at least three board members expressed new willingness to exempt the “Pride” and BLM flags from the political speech ban.

The only problem? That pesky First Amendment.

Public school districts like Durango are allowed to ban some types of speech, like political speech, but must apply such restrictions equally.

That’s why the district’s lawyers advised it to remove “Pride” and Black Lives Matter flags in October. Durango can’t ban some kinds of political expression and not others without violating the First Amendment.

Importantly, neither Durango’s school board nor its lawyers deny the contested flags constitute political speech. Most people understand “Pride” flags symbolize support for gender ideology, including policies like allowing minors to undergo transgender medical interventions. BLM is an explicitly political movement geared, in part, toward disrupting the nuclear family.

Instead of trying to defend the “Pride” and BLM flags as apolitical, board members Rick Petersen, Kristin Smith and Katie Stewart say they could draft and sign a resolution endorsing the flags as speech consistent with the district’s educational and cultural goals.

“By designating it as government speech and adopting [the flags] as symbols of our school district, it avoids a First Amendment problem,” Petersen explained in last week’s board meeting.

The line between government and private speech was most recently delineated Shurtleff, et al., v. City of Boston, a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that found public organizations have more leeway to express their own speech than limit the speech of others. Writing for the majority, then-Justice Stephen Breyer explained:

The First Amendment prevents [the government] from discriminating against speakers based on their viewpoint. But when the government speaks for itself, the First Amendment does not demand airtime for all views.

Denver Public School District (DPS) successfully used Shurtleff to defend displaying the “Pride” flag in its schools. A DPS parent had sued the district for displaying the flag, calling it discriminatory and asking they be taken down or paired with “Straight Pride” flags.

A magistrate judge dismissed the suit in August, writing,

Here, DPS selected the Pride Flag, and not [the “Straight Pride” flag], as representing the message that DPS wishes to convey.

DPS’ victory doesn’t mean Durango’s path forward will be easy. The district’s lawyers do not appear to endorse the board’s proposed resolution, according to the Herald. Petersen suggests one wrong move could bankrupt the district:

What this board is trying to do is find a way where can do two things to the best of our ability. One is abide by our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging policy resolution … and the other side of it is making sure we don’t put the school out of business.

Did you catch that? The district decided to endorse the “Pride” and BLM flags in accordance with their Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging resolution. Published in 2021, this document reads, in part:

Education is at the heart of social justice, as we are a huge player in determining the type of key that children will hold in their hands as adults in our society.

As the Daily Citizen frequently demonstrates, “social justice” means different things to different groups. Black Lives Matter, for instance, believes social justice involves defunding the police, monetary reparations for slavery, and teaching “anti-racism” in elementary schools.

Education requires teaching skills that allow children to grow into productive, engaged members of society. Teaching children to support and inform specific policy agendas isn’t education — its indoctrination.

Durango’s board seems content to further this indoctrination to avoid public backlash. That’s dereliction of duty.

The proposed resolution could take six months for board members to draft. In the meantime, “Pride” and BLM flags will be allowed to stay. The Daily Citizen will keep you updated on this developing story.

To learn more about politics and gender ideology in schools, check out Focus on the Family’s Back-to-School resource for busy parents.

Additional Articles and Resources

Students’ Test Scores Tank After School Consults ‘Woke Kindergarten’

BLM Coloring Book Teaches Elementary Students the Nuclear Family is Racist

Five Things for Christians to Remember During ‘LGBT Pride Month’

Back to School With Sexualized Lessons

Is it ‘Book Banning’ to Keep Sexually Explicit Books out of Schools?

Yakima Union Gospel Mission Wins Religious Freedom Victory

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled last Friday that the state of Washington could not enforce a nondiscrimination law against the Yakima Union Gospel Mission while its lawsuit against the state moved forward.

The Mission was challenging a recent redefinition of the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) which forbids discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation. That nondiscrimination law is in conflict with the Mission’s deeply held Christian beliefs about marriage, sexuality and relationships.

According to the complaint filed against the state by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a nonprofit legal aid organization that works to defend First Amendment rights:

The Mission’s employees must adhere to certain Christian belief and behavior requirements – including abstaining from any sexual conduct outside of biblical marriage between one man and one woman – in order to properly live out and represent a Christian lifestyle and to not undermine the Mission’s religious message.

The Mission has provided shelter, meals, clothing, addiction-recovery, medical and dental help, and emergency care for thousands of needy people for the past 85 years. The lawsuit explains that the ministry serves anyone in need:

The Mission offers temporary and emergency shelter services for the homeless 365 days a year and provides a family shelter for families with minor children, including same sex and transgender couples with children. Last fiscal year (July 1, 2021 – June 30, 2022), the Mission provided a total of 30,167 nights of shelter to 881 different adults and 3,592 nights of shelter for children.
The Mission’s Good News Café gives out free meals three times a day to the public and shelter guests, serving 141,629 free meals to the hungry during that same period.

Until 2021, the Christian ministry could hire employees who agreed with its Christian beliefs, because of a religious exemption in Washington’s nondiscrimination law.

But that same year, the state Supreme Court narrowed that exemption in a case involving another ministry, Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission. The court held that, for hiring purposes, the religious exemption in WLAD only applied to those in ministerial positions.

The Yakima Mission has more than 150 employees, including those in non-ministerial positions, such as IT technicians, thrift store workers and operations assistants, all of whom are expected to agree with and follow the ministry’s Christian beliefs. The ministry simply wants to hire staff who will further its goal of caring for the needy and spreading the gospel.

But the Washington Supreme Court’s decision opened those positions to anyone, including those who might disagree with some of the Mission’s beliefs. And the state’s attorney general has already begun investigating other Christian organizations that want to hire individuals in alignment with their beliefs. 

For example, the complaint explains that the attorney general began investigating Seattle Pacific University, a Christian college, because of its “beliefs and policies on marriage and human sexuality.”

The school is pursuing its own lawsuit against the state with the aid of the Becket Fund, a Christian legal aid organization.

The recent decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is an important one, allowing the lawsuit to move forward and preventing the attorney general from enforcing this unconstitutional interpretation of Washington’s nondiscrimination law.

ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Tucker, director of the organization’s Center for Christian Ministries, explained in a press release:

The Constitution gives religious organizations the freedom to hire employees who are aligned with and live out their religious beliefs.
Yakima Union Gospel Mission exists to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ through its homeless shelter, addiction-recovery programs, outreach efforts, meal services, and health clinics. But it faces substantial penalties under Washington state law for simply engaging in its freedom to hire fellow believers who share the mission’s calling to spread the Gospel and care for vulnerable people in the Yakima community.

Tucker added, “We are pleased the court ruled to protect the ministry’s constitutional rights as this lawsuit proceeds.”

The case is Union Gospel Mission of Yakima v. Ferguson.

Related articles and resources:

Federal Court Delivers Legal Victory for Religious Hiring Rights at Faith-Based Schools

Lawsuit by Church Organist Falls Flat; Appeals Court Resolves Case on High Note for Religious Freedom

Ohio Pastor Facing Criminal Charges for Opening Church Doors to Homeless

Supreme Court Affirms Religious Schools’ Right to Hire and Fire Teachers

Wyoming Rescue Mission Fights for Right to Hire Christian Employees – and Wins

Image from Shutterstock.

A Pretty Good Week for Free Speech

There are weeks when it’s hard to believe that freedom of speech is one of our country’s core values. It’s frequently in the news these days because it’s been violated, whether through restrictive policies on college campuses, government attempts to compel speech that violates consciences, or government efforts to censor speech that it disagrees with.

Actually free speech is more than a core value. It’s a guaranteed right, etched in the figurative stone of the First Amendment. It is part of that God-given right of “liberty” mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, and along with the other unalienable rights of life and the pursuit of happiness, becomes the reason governments are instituted among men, i.e., to “secure these rights.”

Our recent track record in the free speech arena has been disappointing. That’s why it’s notable that we’ve seen a several positive news reports in the last week or so that defy the normal script and provide a glimmer of hope that perhaps there are reasons to be encouraged about the future of free speech.

President Trump issues an Executive Order (EO).

On March 21, the President issued an EO on “Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities.” One of its purposes is to instruct federal agencies that provide research grants to colleges and universities to come up with polices and regulations that require those grantees to ensure “open, intellectually engaging, and diverse debate, including through compliance with the First Amendment for public institutions and compliance with stated institutional policies regarding freedom of speech for private institutions.”

In other words, if colleges want to hamper free speech, they will jeopardize their opportunities to receive valuable research grants from the federal government.

If the EO indeed creates a more free speech friendly environment on the nation’s college campuses, we’ll hopefully see fewer cases of speech codes, free speech zones, onerous “security” fees and other tricks that are employed to squelch what typically proves to be primarily conservative and religious speech.

Amherst College PC speech code revoked.

On the day before the President’s EO dealing with free speech on campus, Amherst College committed both a free speech infraction and a quick about-face in record time. First, the college’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion posted and emailed to students a “Common Language Guide” that is as politically correct as any speech code we have seen. It was supposedly intended as a “guide to a common and shared understanding of language.” Shared by whom? For example, the guide one-sidedly defines “capitalism” as a system that “leads to exploitative labor practices, which affect marginalized groups disproportionately.”

When conservative students brought the guide to the attention of Amherst College President Biddy Martin, however, she was quick to disown it as running “counter to the core academic values of freedom of thought and expression.”

Federal judge protects free speech from government retaliation.

A federal district judge rebuked a California school district for retaliating against speech it disapproved of from a private businessman. James Riley owns and operates a “living history farm” that offered presentations on historical events such as the American Revolution, the Civil War, the California Gold Rush, and others. It was a popular destination for student field trips sponsored by the school district. That is, until the school district learned of Facebook posts from the owner that didn’t sit well with the school district’s powers-that-be, who cancelled all future field trips to Riley’s farm.

When Riley sued, the school district asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit on the basis that that Riley has no constitutional right to receive visits from the school district’s students. That may be, the judge responded, but neither can the school district—as a government entity—terminate the field trips for unconstitutional reasons such as retaliation for Riley’s private speech. The judge denied the school district’s motion to dismiss.

If the issue of government retaliation against a business for the unpopular private speech of its owner sounds familiar to you, you’re not alone. David French of National Review and constitutional scholar Eugene Volokh both cite the recent actions of San Antonio in banning Chick-fil-A from the city airport as part and parcel of the same type of constitutional violation that Riley experienced.

Kentucky governor signs campus free speech bill.

And last but not least, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin signed a bill we’ve reported on into law this week that requires public universities and colleges in the state to guarantee free speech on campus. The law forbids speech codes, speech “zones”, onerous “security” fees, and disinviting speakers because of the controversial nature of their views.

Iowa governor signs campus free speech bill.

Similar to Kentucky’s law, this one also allows student organizations to require that its leaders agree and support the organization’s beliefs. This follows a couple situations where Christian clubs at Iowa universities were denied official status because they enforced such a requirement.

All in all, not a bad week for freedom of speech.

Hawaii Agrees to Protect Free Speech Rights of Pregnancy Resource Centers

In a little-noticed press release recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) had reached a settlement agreement with the State of Hawaii over the issue of compelling pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) to promote abortion.

In 2017, Hawaii attempted to legislatively follow in California’s footsteps by requiring PRCs—whose pro-life mission is to persuade pregnant women who are considering abortion to change their minds—to provide such women with a government-scripted notice promoting abortion. Such a requirement ran directly contrary to the mission, conscience, and preferred message of the PRCs.

California, as you may recall, ended up on the losing end of a similar First Amendment case at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 in NIFLA v. Becerra. In that case, California passed a law (known as the FACT Act) that required PRCs to put public notices in their facilities and on their websites promoting the availability of free and low-cost abortion subsidized by the state. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that such government-compelled speech violated the free speech rights of California PRCs.

In September 2018, following the NIFLA decision, a Hawaii federal district court permanently blocked Hawaii’s version of the law from being enforced against two PRCs, citing the ruling in the NIFLAcase.

HHS had previously been asked by the two Hawaii PRCs to investigate whether the Hawaii law also violated two pro-life conscience laws passed by Congress, the Weldon and Coats-Snowe Amendments, which prohibit states receiving federal funds from discriminating against entities that don’t offer or promote abortions.

The most recent settlement agreement is the culmination of HHS’s efforts to enforce federal conscience laws, as well as the recognition by Hawaii’s Attorney General that because of the NIFLAdecision, as well as the Hawaii federal court decision, Hawaii’s law was unenforceable anyway.