Teacher Won Her Case After Getting Fired For Not Using Pronouns

A lawyer, who was responsible for winning a case involving a Virginia school board firing a teacher refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns, claimed that the decision will have far-reaching and "seismic implications."

"We’re grateful that, because of this decision, tolerance is now a two‐way street, not a one‐way ratchet for totalitarian ideology," Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) President and CEO Kristen Waggoner told Fox News Digital last 4 October.

Under the legal ruling, the Virginia-based West Point School Board will have to pay a former high school teacher, Peter Vlaming, US$ 575,000 in damages and attorney’s fees after he refused to call a transgender student by their preferred pronouns.

"It protects all teachers in Virginia and its rationale should guide other courts addressing similar issues," Waggoner said.

She also said that the ADF represents many other teachers facing similar situations in other states and how "no teacher should be fired for living according to their beliefs or protecting their students."

It all started when a lawsuit was filed by ADF against the school board in September 2019. Vlaming, who taught French at West Point High School for 7 years, was fired by the board with a unanimous 5-0 decision. A devout Christian, Vlaming said he could not comply with the school district’s policy to refer to students with pronouns inconsistent with their biological sex.

According to the ADF, "Vlaming tried to accommodate the student by consistently using the student’s new preferred name and by avoiding the use of pronouns altogether."

However, school officials were obstinate that Vlaming used the student's preferred pronouns and also to use them "even when the student wasn’t present," ADF claimed.

Aside from the financial settlement, Vlaming scored another win after the case because it authorized her record be cleared, and that the West Point School Board’s policies to "respect free speech."

The French teacher is allowed to go back to teaching and his former colleagues at West Point School can also do their jobs "without fear of retribution for living consistent with their faith and biological reality," the attorney added.