Virginia school board pays over $500k to teacher fired over pronouns

The West Point School Board settled a religious liberty lawsuit on Monday with a former French teacher fired for refusing to use students’ pronouns for religious reasons. The district agreed to give Peter Vlaming $575,000 in damages and legal fees after the case spent five years in court, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal advocacy group that represents Vlaming. The board also agreed to clear Vlaming’s termination from its records and adopt Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s education policies on free speech and parental rights, a move separate from the settlement agreement.

What exactly happened with Vlaming’s termination? Administrators fired Vlaming in 2018 when his religious convictions kept him from using pronouns inconsistent with a student’s sex. Vlaming remained respectful in the classroom by referring to all students by name and avoiding pronouns altogether, said Alliance Defending Freedom.

The board continued pushing Vlaming, and despite the teacher explaining his religious convictions about the policy, he was ultimately fired. Vlaming simply couldn't bring himself to say something directly violating his conscience, he said in a statement. He filed a 2019 lawsuit against the district which a circuit court dismissed the same year. However, a 2023 ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court revived the case.

What did the state Supreme Court ruling say? The lower court made a mistake dismissing a legally viable religious liberty claim, state Supreme Court Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote in the majority opinion. Virginia’s constitution aims to protect diversity of thought, speech, religion, and opinion, and religious liberty can’t just be ‘keep your religion to yourself,’ he wrote. It would be ridiculous to think that a religious person in Virginia needs a constitutional right just to hold a silent belief or opinion, Kelsey explained.

No government office can punish someone for refusing to say something they don’t believe in, said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer. Hopefully, other government and school officials take note of the high cost of failing to respect an American’s constitutionally protected freedoms, he added.

Dig deeper: Listen to Jeff Palomino’s report about Vlaming’s win on The World and Everything in It.