Geary County schools have agreed to pay $95,000 to a former teacher who was punished for not complying with a policy requiring teachers to use the preferred names and pronouns of transgender students.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based group that defends religious freedom, announced the settlement for damages and attorney’s fees on Wednesday.
“No school district should ever force teachers to willfully deceive parents or engage in any speech that violates their deeply held religious beliefs,” said Tyson Langhofer, director of the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Academic Freedom.
“We hope that it will encourage school districts across the country to support the constitutionally protected freedom of teachers to teach and communicate honestly with both children and parents,” Langhofer said in a statement.
Pamela Ricard, a teacher in the district since 2005, was suspended for three days last year for not referring to a student by their preferred name in violation of general district policies intended to prevent bullying and promote diversity and inclusion.
Ricard, who retired earlier this year, asked a federal judge to declare those policies unconstitutional as well as a more recent policy that required teachers to use students’ preferred names and pronouns.
She also wanted her personnel file purged of any reference to the punishment school officials imposed on her for expressing her views regarding gender identity.
As part of the settlement, the school district agreed to issue a statement that Ricard was in good standing without any disciplinary actions against her at the time of her retirement.
Ricard said in the lawsuit that district policies for student names and pronouns were inconsistent with her Christian faith.
Last May, U.S. District Judge Holly Teeter temporarily blocked a district policy barring teachers from revealing to parents that a student had requested to be referred to by a name or pronoun “inconsistent with their biological sex.”
Ricard, who taught math strategies for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students at Fort Riley Middle School during the 2020-2021 school year, contended that the district’s policy for communicating with parents violated her right to freely exercise her faith.
A Christian, Ricard said she believed it would be dishonest to talk to the parents of a child
using one name and one set of pronouns when the child is using and being referred to at school by a different name and pronouns, unknown to the parents.
The policy prohibited school employees from revealing to parents that a student had requested use of a preferred name or different set of pronouns at school “unless the student requests the administration or a counselor to do so.”
The district argued in court that the communications policy did not require Ricard to use a student’s name or pronouns in conversations with parents, only that it prohibited her from revealing to the parents a preferred name or pronoun the student is using at school.
The district said the teacher could refer to students in conversation with parents as “your child” or “your student,” without referring to the child by name or pronoun.
The district also said it did not want preferred name and pronoun information disclosed
because it is not was its place” to “out” students to parents who might disagree with the child’s desire to go by a preferred name or pronoun.
However, Teeter found that the communications policy had not been evenly applied, creating multiple exceptions where the violator’s intent was taken into consideration or had been exempted for “secular reasons.”
Testimony during a court hearing found there were a “couple” other district employees who had inadvertently disclosed to parents the preferred name or pronouns of children who had not authorized the disclosure to their parents, court records show.
The district said that they weren’t disciplined for violating the policy, although the language didn’t distinguish between unintentional or intentional violations.
The district also admitted that if parents requested copies of records that included information concerning preferred names and preferred pronouns, the information would be made available without the child’s permission under a federal student privacy law.
“Thus, the district is willing to make an exception for the secular purpose of complying with federal law, but not religious reasons,” Teeter wrote.
