Matt Sharp, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom and director of its Center for Public Policy, says ADF has been representing teachers and students alike who have been told to give up their right to free speech and use others' preferred pronouns and names in the classroom and beyond.
"Unfortunately, we're seeing instances across the country where great teachers were being forced out of their jobs because they didn't want to call a student by an inaccurate pronoun or didn't want to lie to parents about a student wanting to use an inaccurate name or pronoun," he accounts.
Noting that ADF also has a legislative arm that helps write laws that protect people's constitutional freedoms, Sharp says House Bill 1270/ SB 0937 is a great law that protects people from punishment for sticking to their sincerely held beliefs.
"This grew out of a desire among the Tennessee Legislature to make sure that those stories of teachers, students, and others being disciplined or even losing their job for simply wanting to protect the right to free speech, that those stories never happen in Tennessee," the attorney relays.
Governor Bill Lee (R) signed HB 1270 into law earlier this month.
The Tennessee Equality Project and Human Rights Campaign say it will add to the growing challenges for trans and nonbinary teachers, school employees, students and contractors, but in Sharp's view, it is the strongest law of its kind in the country.
He thinks it is great to see Tennessee aligning with the Trump administration and leading the charge on this issue, and ADF is glad that no one in the state – from kindergarten students to government employees – can be forced to use a name or pronoun that is inconsistent with someone's gender or legal name.
