Grants Pass School District teachers Rachel Sager and Katie Medart were terminated in 2021 for participating in the "I Resolve" campaign against the school's policy of allowing males into women's bathrooms.
The campaign sought to establish an alternative to the district's "Gender Identity, Transgender, Name, and Pronoun Guidance."
"Rachel and Katie just advocated for solutions that they believed in," says Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorney Mathew Hoffmann. "They created a video on their own time to bring forward loving, reasonable, and tolerant solutions regarding gender identity and education, and they were terminated for that. And that violates the First Amendment."
Sager, who was an assistant principal in the district, and Medart, who taught health and science, faced complaints from other staff over their work on the campaign.
Hoffman says the two were eventually reinstated to positions at an online school, which resulted in significantly reduced day-to-day interactions with students compared to their previous roles. So, their lawsuit continued.
"It ultimately ended up in a great opinion by the Ninth Circuit, which reaffirmed that teachers should be free to advocate on matters of public concern, like matters of gender identity policy," the ADF attorney relays. "That ultimately led to the great settlement in this case."
The settlement covers the costs of damages and attorneys' fees, and it comes five months after the the federal appellate court ruled that the school district unconstitutionally violated the teachers’ rights under the U.S. Constitution by engaging in content and viewpoint-based discrimination, as well as their rights under Title VII by terminating them for their "biblically-based views on gender and sexuality."
In addition to monetary damages, the school district has reportedly agreed to issue a "public statement acknowledging that the educators' wrongful termination fell short of its standards and responsibilities."
Administrators must also write positive letters of recommendation to help Sager and Medart find new employment, removing negative references from their personnel files and revising the relevant policy to comply with the First Amendment.
