West Point Public Schools, located in East Virginia, agreed to pay fired teacher Peter Vlaming $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees.
Vlaming, who taught French, was terminated in a 5-0 school board vote to end a dispute with school officials involving a transgender student in his class.
The student, a female who said she was male, was accommodated by the school but not by Vlaming, who cited his conscience and his Christian faith, and refused.
Vlaming agreed to call the student by his new male name, but he refused to use “he” to refer to what he knew is a biological female. Frustrated school officials even demanded the defiant teacher refer to the student as “he,” even when the student wasn’t present, but Vlaming refused and was ultimately fired for his refusal.
The settlement was announced by Alliance Defending Freedom, the religious liberty law firm that has represented Vlaming since he filed a federal lawsuit.
Caleb Dalton, senior counsel at ADF, says the case is not only about free speech but also about being compelled to knowingly lie. Vlaming had agreed to use the student’s new name in class, the attorney points out, and avoided stating “she” in class, too.
“All he couldn't do was tell a lie,” Dalton argues, “which was use a pronoun that was not correct.”
After the teacher sued, the school district appeared to win its case after a circuit court judge dismissed the lawsuit. ADF appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which overruled the lower court and ordered the lawsuit to proceed.
In the state high court’s ruling, it agreed Vlaming had been terminated because the school district compelled him to do something that violated his religious beliefs.
West Point Public Schools serves the small town of the same name, population 3,400. The county, King William, voted 68%-30% for Donald Trump in 2020.
The school district itself is small, too, with about 800 K-12 students spread across just two schools.
