An Indiana teacher will get his day in court after a district fired him for refusing to use preferred pronouns, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled Tuesday.
The Brownsburg Community School Corporation fired former school music teacher John Kluge over religious beliefs, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled Tuesday.
The 7th Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling against Kluge and remanded the case.
The district could be held liable for damages and attorney fees for its religious discrimination, according to the group.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent Kluge after Brownsburg Community School Corporation fired him for his religious beliefs.
"Title VII requires the government to accommodate its employees’ freedom to live and work according to their religious beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation David Cortman, who argued before the court. “The Brownsburg school district ignored this right, deciding instead that Mr. Kluge’s religious views couldn’t be tolerated. It revoked his religious accommodation based on the complaints of a few, forcing him to resign or be fired.”
Kluge taught at Brownsburg High School for four years. In 2017, the school district mandated that teachers refer to transgender students using pronouns and names inconsistent with their sex.
Kluge requested a religious accommodation under Title VII to call all his students by their last names—like a coach—instead of their pronouns. The school district initially granted Kluge this accommodation, and he taught under it for a school year. But after complaints, the district revoked the accommodation and Brownsburg terminated Kluge’s employment in 2021.
He filed suit, lost, and then appealed the lower court’s unfavorable decision to the 7th Circuit in July 2022. A year later, the appeals court sent the case back to the district court in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Groff v. DeJoy.
Kluge filed his second appeal with the 7th Circuit in July 2024, asking the court once again to reverse the lower court decision and reinstate the case. His attorneys argued that the school district’s actions violated the Civil Rights Act’s Title VII, a federal law prohibiting discrimination against employees on the basis of religion.
The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Groff that employers must accommodate employees’ religious practices unless doing so seriously burdens their overall business.
The 7th Circuit said that a jury must decide whether Kluge’s reasonable accommodation was an undue burden on the school district here, exposing the district to substantial liability.
“Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to Kluge, the school introduced nothing to show that a teacher using one’s last name resulted in ‘emotional distress’ under an objective standard,” the Seventh Circuit wrote in its opinion in Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Corporation. “[T]here is insufficient evidence to conclude that calling students by their last names, without more, would inflict emotional harm on a reasonable person.”
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