Peter Vlaming / ADF
A Virginia school board has agreed a $575,000 settlement with a former high school teacher who was terminated for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative advocacy group, announced the settlement in a press release on Monday, noting that the school board also removed Peter Vlaming’s dismissal from his employment record.
Vlaming, a former French teacher at West Point High School in King William County, filed a lawsuit against the school board and administrators following his firing back in 2018.
Although a lower court initially dismissed the case without properly reviewing the evidence, the Virginia Supreme Court reinstated it in December.
ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, said in a press release:
Peter wasn’t fired for something he said; he was fired for something he couldn’t say. The school board violated his First Amendment rights under the Virginia Constitution and commonwealth law.
As a teacher, 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 knew were untrue, and no school board or government official can punish someone for that reason.
We’re pleased to favorably settle this case on behalf of Peter and hope other government and school officials will take note of the high cost involved in failing to respect an American’s constitutionally protected freedoms.
Vlaming also weighed in on his victory:
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.
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 and professor’s fundamental First Amendment rights.
Thankfully for Peter, justice has now been served and the West Point School Board won’t discriminate against their Christian employees ever again.
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