BUZZ
District had allowed him to use students’ last names, then backtracked
An Indiana high school music teacher forced to resign for refusing to use students’ “preferred” pronouns and names will get his case heard by a jury, thanks to a recent ruling by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, officials in the Brownsburg Community School Corporation initially had compromised with John Kluge (pictured), a teacher at Brownsburg HS, allowing him for about a year to refer to students by their last names.
However, after “complaints of a few students and teachers,” the district reversed course, requiring Kluge use the pronouns and names students wanted.
As noted by The Fix in 2018, Kluge reportedly was “troubled by the research showing that individuals who adopt a gender different than their biological sex and who transition, through hormone therapy and surgery, are 20 times more likely to commit suicide […] he could not, in good conscience, encourage his students down a path that could lead to tragic consequences.”
Following the district’s policy reversal, Kluge said he was threatened with termination with just three weeks left in the school year. He turned in a letter of resignation and asked that it not be made official until the last day of school. When that day arrived, however, Kluge asked that his letter be withdrawn.
But the district had “locked out” his school email access and Kluge heard from peers that the district had posted his job position as available.
Kluge ended up suing in 2021, lost twice in district court (the second time after the Seventh Circuit sent the case back for review following the SCOTUS’s Groff v. DeJoy decision), then appealed to the Seventh Circuit last year for a full court hearing.
MORE: Two religious controversies faced by school districts — one Christian, the other Muslim
Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Corporation “challenges the legality of the school district’s decision to revoke Kluge’s religious accommodation,” noting that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act employers must allow such accommodations “unless the employer can prove undue hardship.”
The ADF argues the Brownsburg district faced no such thing: “Third-party grumblings—from a miniscule [sic] fraction of its constituents—don’t show ‘undue hardship’ in accommodating him or justify Brownsburg excluding accommodations and forcing [Kluge] to resign.”
The Seventh Circuit ruled on August 5 a jury now will determine whether Brownsburg faced an “undue burden” which exposed it “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 court wrote in its recent decision. “[T]here is insufficient evidence to conclude that calling students by their last names, without more, would inflict emotional harm on a reasonable person.”
MORE: Ninth Circuit upholds religious colleges’ right to Title IX exemptions
IMAGE CAPTION & CREDIT: John Kluge plays the cello; Alliance Defending Freedom/X
