The Virginia Supreme Court ruled in favor of reinstating a gym teacher in the commonwealth who would not refer to transgender students by their preferred pronouns.
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that said the Loudon County Public School system violated teacher Tanner Cross’s free speech rights when it suspended him after he spoke out at a school board meeting.
Tanner said he would not "affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it's against my religion,” later adding that “it's lying to a child, it's abuse to a child, and it's sinning against our God."
The school said Cross was suspended in part because of how his comments caused a “significant disruption.”
"Many students and parents at Leesburg Elementary have expressed fear, hurt and disappointment about coming to school,” LCPS said in a statement at the time. “Addressing those concerns is paramount to the school division's goal to provide a safe, welcoming, and affirming learning environment for all students. While LCPS respects the rights of public-school employees to free speech and free exercise of religion, those rights do not outweigh the rights of students to be educated in a supportive and nurturing environment."
School boards across the state have been revising their policies to be more inclusive of transgender students in accordance with a new state law. But Loudoun County, outside the nation’s capital, has been a particular flashpoint in the debate over not just transgender students but also how students learn about racism and race relations.
The school system said it suspended Cross in part because his comments caused a disruption at the school. But the lower court judge, James Plowman, and the state Supreme Court agreed that the handful of calls fielded by school administrators did not cause the type of disruption that warranted a suspension.
Tuesday’s ruling leaves in place a temporary injunction that bars the school system from suspending Cross. A trial is scheduled for next week in Loudoun County to settle the issue permanently.
Since Cross filed his lawsuit in May, two additional teachers in Loudoun County have joined him as plaintiffs. (AP)
"Teachers shouldn’t be forced to promote ideologies that are harmful to their students and that they believe are false, nor should they be silenced for commenting at a public meeting," ADF senior counsel Tyson Langhofer said in a statement responding to the ruling. "The lower court’s decision was a well-reasoned application of the facts to clearly established law, as the Virginia Supreme Court found. But because Loudoun County Public Schools is now requiring all teachers and students to deny truths about what it means to be male and female and compelling them to call students by their chosen pronouns or face punishment, we have moved to amend our lawsuit to challenge that policy on behalf of multiple faculty members. Public employees cannot be forced to contradict their core beliefs just to keep a job."
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