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School will adopt religious accommodations policy
A former University of Michigan medical center employee will receive $410,000 in a settlement after the hospital illegally terminated her for refusing to use preferred pronouns and refer patients for transgender drugs or surgeries.
As part of the settlement, University of Michigan Health-West must also implement a religious accommodations policy, according to First Liberty, the legal group representing Valerie Kloosterman.
Under the policy, employees cannot be forced to use pronouns or to participate in gender transition treatments if doing so would contradict their religious beliefs.
In the majority opinion, Judge Eric Murphy wrote, “Even apart from her religion, Kloosterman also believes that puberty-blocking drugs and sex-reassignment surgeries do not qualify as proper health care as a matter of her medical judgment.”
“Yet the training would have required her to affirm statements inconsistent with these opinions on threat of termination,” he wrote.
Kloosterman, who worked as a physician’s assistant, said the agreement protects employees’ ability to “provide excellent care consistent with their medical judgment, because all patients are created in the image of God.”
“All I wanted to do was provide the best care possible to my patients without being forced to violate my Christian beliefs,” she said.
Kayla Toney, Counsel at First Liberty, said employers cannot punish employees because of their faith under Title VII.
“Valerie is an exceptional physician assistant who cares for each of her patients. Employers cannot drive out people like Valerie just because of their sincere religious beliefs. We are grateful to have resolved this matter with University of Michigan Health-West,” she said.
First Liberty Institute filed the lawsuit in 2022, alleging that hospital officials tried to force Kloosterman to pledge to use patients’ preferred pronouns and make referrals for “gender transition” services against her religious beliefs, The College Fix previously reported.
The lawsuit stated that “no patient ever asked her for a referral for such drugs or procedures, and she never used pronouns contrary to a patient’s wishes.”
Still, the officials fired her after she requested religious accommodation.
Administrators also allegedly called her “evil” and a “liar” and “mockingly told her that she could not take the Bible or her religious beliefs to work with her, and blamed her for gender dysphoria-related suicides,” according to the lawsuit.
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