Ex-teacher’s lawsuit can proceed
State Supreme Court backs West Point instructor fired for refusing to use student’s chosen pronouns
The Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a circuit court decision to dismiss a teacher’s $1 million lawsuit against the West Point School Board, which he filed after being terminated for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronoun.
Peter Vlaming taught French at West Point High School for six years. At the start of the fall semester in 2018, a student Vlaming taught the previous year asked to be called by a masculine name as well as to change their chosen French name to a masculine one. Later in the semester, the student also asked to be referred to by masculine pronouns, but Vlaming refused, instead telling the student he would only refer to their preferred name but avoid referring to him with either masculine, feminine, or third-person pronouns.
Vlaming claimed that he could not in good conscience “use pronouns that express an objectively untrue ideological message” due to his religious and philosophical beliefs which hold that “sex is biologically fixed in each person and cannot be changed regardless of a person’s feelings or desires.”
His firing ultimately came when, after being told repeatedly by school leadership to use masculine pronouns when referring to the student, Vlaming, apparently by accident, used a feminine pronoun to refer to the student during a class activity.
The school board gave him a written directive to use masculine pronouns that transgender students have the “right to be addressed by the names and pronouns that they use.” Vlaming said he would continue using the student’s chosen name but not his chosen pronoun, and he was subsequently fired for violating the school board’s policies against discrimination and harassment based on gender identity.
In a 73-page majority opinion, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote the court concluded that Vlaming has a legally viable claim his rights to
free speech and free exercise of religion were violated, and that his contract with the school was violated. The majority cited, in part, Virginia’s history of protections for religious freedom which they say go beyond the free exercise clause in the First Amendment.
“Absent a truly compelling reason for doing so, no government committed to these principles can lawfully coerce its citizens into pledging verbal allegiance to ideological views that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs,” the opinion reads.
A King William County Circuit Court judge dismissed his initial lawsuit in August 2021.
The specific incident that ultimately led to Vlaming’s firing involved an activity the student in question was being directed around the classroom by another student while wearing virtual reality goggles. At one point, Vlaming exclaimed, “Don’t let her hit the wall!”
He covered his mouth immediately and later apologized to the student, saying “this is difficult,” but the student withdrew from the class later that day. The principal told Vlaming he should have apologized specifically for not using a masculine pronoun.
After his firing, Vlaming was unable to get other teaching jobs, stating that he had been “blacklisted” from public education.
Vlaming is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group which has filed similar lawsuits across the country, including three others in Virginia.