BUZZ
District had changed its mind on letting him just use students’ last names
The nine-year-old case of an Indiana music teacher who refused to refer to students by their “preferred” pronouns and/or names has finally come to a conclusion.
In a settlement, the Alliance Defending Freedom reports the Brownsburg Community School Corporation agreed to pay John Kluge $650,000 after it (according to Kluge) forced him to resign his position.
The school district initially had compromised with Kluge on the matter, allowing him for about a year to call students by their last names.
But after “complaints of a few students and teachers,” the district changed its mind and Kluge said he was then threatened with being fired. He ended up turning in a letter of resignation, but withdrew it on the last day of the school year.
It didn’t matter; Kluge discovered he was “locked out” of his school email and fellow teachers informed him his teaching position was now listed as available employment.
The conservative organization Indiana Family Institute had noted Kluge also had been the faculty sponsor of Brownsburg High School’s “Teens for Christ” student club. It pointed out Kluge was “being forced out of his job while faculty in support of these new ideologies have been given opportunities to teach gender-identity-ideology at faculty meetings.”
After losing twice in district court, last summer the Seventh Circuit allowed Kluge’s case to be heard by a jury. The court had noted “the school introduced nothing to show that a teacher using one’s last name resulted in ‘emotional distress’ under an objective standard.”
ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman said the settlement “confirms what the law has always said: Public schools cannot force teachers to violate their religious beliefs”:
“Title VII requires employers to accommodate their employees’ religious beliefs and practices,” Cortman said. “When they fail to do so—or worse, announce that they will grant no religious accommodations, as Brownsburg did—they can be held accountable.
“We hope this settlement shows teachers that they do not have to bow the knee to ideological mandates that violate their religious beliefs. And schools should learn that refusing to accommodate religious employees can be illegal and expensive.”
MORE: Trump guidance says refusal to use preferred pronouns is ‘harassment’
