Virginia Pays Ex-Teacher $575,000 Over Transgender Dispute
French teacher Peter Vlaming was fired for refusing to use a trans student's pronouns. He claimed it violated his freedom of religion.
A Virginia school board has settled a lawsuit brought by Peter Vlaming, a former French teacher at West Point High School, who was fired for refusing to use a transgender student’s pronouns.
The West Point School Board will pay $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees to Vlaming.
School administrators had ordered Vlaming to remedy a conflict he was having with a transgender freshman over pronoun use. The student had recently transitioned and had asked to be called by male pronouns in school.
Vlaming refused, claiming that acknowledging the student’s gender identity would be a “lie.” The student filed a complaint in response.
A self-professed “Christian,” Vlaming claimed he tried to compromise by agreeing to refer to the student by his new name but not by male pronouns, arguing that doing so would violate his personal religious beliefs that gender is fixed at birth.
At one point, Vlaming forgot the arrangement during an activity in which the student was participating and misgendered the student. Ordered by superiors to resolve the situation, Vlaming refused to acknowledge the student’s gender identity as valid.
Superintendent Laura Abel recommended Vlaming be fired, adding that, in addition to failing to follow administrators’ orders, his refusal to use male pronouns to refer to the student violated the school district’s nondiscrimination policy, creating a hostile environment for the transgender youth.
Following his termination, Vlaming, with the help of the anti-LGBTQ legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, sued the district, claiming that the school board had violated his constitutional right to speak freely and exercise his religion.
A lower court judge dismissed the lawsuit. But the Virginia Supreme Court eventually restored the lawsuit, finding that two of Vlaming’s claims should be allowed to go to trial — his right to free exercise of religion, as guaranteed by the Virginia constitution, and a breach of contract claim against the school board, reports The Hill.
The board decided to settle the lawsuit rather than go to trial.
As part of the settlement, the board will pay Vlaming damages and cover his legal fees and will clear the dismissal from his employment record, according to a news release from the right-wing ADF.
Separate from the settlement agreement, the board also changed its policies to conform to “model policies” approved by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration last year.
The revised model policies have rolled back some protections for transgender and gender-nonconforming students and placed more emphasis on “parental rights,” including a requirement that teachers “out” students to their parents if they begin identifying as transgender or failing to adhere to gender norms.
The policies also direct students to use school facilities matching their assigned sex at birth and make it harder for students to change their pronouns at school — even in cases where a student’s parent makes a request that their child’s gender identity be recognized.
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