A federal judge on Friday reportedly affirmed a lower court’s judgment that the school system did not violate the rights of an Indiana music theory instructor who was fired for refusing to address transgender children by their chosen names and pronouns.
Former Brownsburg High School teacher John Kluge filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against the school system after citing his personal religious views for refusing to follow the name and pronoun policy and instead addressing transgender pupils by their last names.
The school system first agreed to allow Kluge use last names to address the pupils after instituting the policy in 2017.
Several students have said that the change made for an awkward atmosphere in the classroom and singled out those pupils who identified as transgender and raised concerns about it.
According to Kluge, he eventually quit his job in 2018 after the school reevaluated its policy on last names and warned him that he would be terminated if he did not comply with the preferred name and pronoun guideline that was in place at the time.
A year later, he filed a lawsuit with the assistance of a conservative legal firm called Alliance Defending Freedom, alleging discrimination in the workplace and asking his old employment back in addition to unspecified monetary damages.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago found on Friday that Kluge’s religious beliefs on the subject disturbed classroom operations, supporting an earlier judgment by an Indiana federal court that the refusal imposed an undue burden on the district.
The development follows other instances of school officials facing penalties for refusing to abide by certain transgender name and pronoun policies.
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Use of a legal name in school is entirely appropriate, & those rulings violate the teacher’s 1st A rights. You have wants in conflict with guaranteed rights: WANTS LOSE! Except here in Bizarre world, where everything is flipped backwards!
What else would one expect from the wilds of darkest Chicago-stan?