Comes at a Steep Cost: Christian Teacher Awarded Six Figures after Termination Over Transgender Pronouns
Jackson Local School District will pay a Christian teacher six figures for trying to compel her to address two self-declared transgender students by their preferred pronouns. Vivian Geraghty had filed a lawsuit against the school district, claiming it violated her First Amendment rights.
The middle school English teacher was eventually forced to resign for refusing to acknowledge the students’ “social transition,” which she claims violated her Christian beliefs.
“The Jackson Local School District in Ohio requires its teachers to personally participate in the “social transition” of students who express a gender identity inconsistent with their sex by using the students’ preferred names and pronouns,” explained the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represented her.
On December 18, 2024, Jackson Local School District settled the lawsuit by paying Geraghty $450,000 in damages and legal fees to end the legal challenge.
The Jackson Memorial Middle School in Massillon teacher said she believed that gender is determined by sex and not personal identity. She asserted that participating in the students’ social transition violated her religious beliefs, was untrue, and harmed them.
“No school official can force a teacher to set her religious beliefs aside in order to keep her job,” said ADF Legal Counsel Logan Spena.
“The school tried to force Vivian to accept and repeat the school’s viewpoint on issues that go to the foundation of morality and human identity, like what makes us male or female, by ordering her to personally participate in the social transition of her students.”
Spena said Geraghty’s defiance to an unconstitutional request vindicated her and taught the school district that abusing power to violate someone’s First Amendment “comes at a steep cost.”
ADF had settled a similar lawsuit with the West Point School Board in Virginia for $575,000 on behalf of another victimized teacher, Peter Vlaming.
“I loved teaching French and gracefully tried to accommodate every student in my class, but I couldn’t say something that directly violated my conscience,” he said after termination.
Vlaming had attempted to accommodate the biological female turned male by using their name without including pronouns. However, the school required him to use the preferred male pronouns to avoid breaching the anti-discrimination policy.
“Peter wasn’t fired for something he said; he was fired for something he couldn’t say,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer.
In another ADF lawsuit, Virginia’s Harrisonburg City School Board agreed to stop forcing teachers to participate in affirming children’s gender identities and lying to parents.
Many other teachers across the country have lost their jobs for refusing to comply with their Woke schools’ transgender policy.
Wisconsin French teacher Jordan Cernek sued Argyle School District for allegedly violating his First Amendment right to religious freedom and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for discrimination based on his faith after being fired for refusing to use students’ preferred pronouns.
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), which represents Cernek, has handled numerous lawsuits across the state involving parents, teachers, teens, and religious leaders, stemming from Woke schools ramming their transgender ideology on everybody.
Until school districts start feeling the pain of violating everybody’s right to push the transgender agenda, the policy will continue harming teachers and students.
I love good news stories. Is the school superintendent still employed? He cost the district big money.