(The Center Square) – Attorneys representing a Virginia high school teacher who was fired for refusing to use pronouns referring to one of his students have announced a settlement with the school district.
Alliance Defending Freedom, representing Peter Vlaming, a former high school French teacher for the West Point School District, said the school board has agreed to pay $575,000 in damages and attorney’s fees. In addition, the school board has agreed to clear Vlaming’s termination from his record.
Alliance said the school district changed its policies to “conform” to the new Virginia education model policies established by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The group says the policies “respect fundamental free speech and parental rights.”
“The settlement follows last December’s landmark Virginia Supreme Court opinion in Vlaming’s favor affirming that the Virginia Constitution contains robust free speech and free exercise protections for public employees,” the Alliance wrote in a statement.
Alliance senior counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, contends that Vlaming was fired for “something he couldn’t say” and claims the school board violated the educator’s “First Amendment rights under the Virginia Constitution and commonwealth law.”
Langhofer defended Vlaming’s reputation as a teacher, saying he did his best to accommodate his students’ needs; however, he “couldn’t in good conscience speak messages that he knew were untrue” and couldn’t be punished.
“No school board or government official can punish someone for that reason. We’re pleased to favorably settle this case on behalf of Peter and hope other government and school officials will take note of the high cost involved in failing to respect an American’s constitutionally protected freedoms,” said Langhofer.
Vlaming defended his actions, saying he was wrongfully terminated for exercising his religious beliefs.
“I was wrongfully fired from my teaching job because my religious beliefs put me on a collision course with school administrators who mandated that teachers ascribe to only one perspective on gender identity – their preferred view,” Vlaming said. “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.”
Attorneys with Alliance initially filed the lawsuit against the school board in September 2019 after Vlaming was terminated for not “comply[ing] with the superintendent’s demand that [Vlaming] refer to one of his students using pronouns inconsistent with the student’s sex.”
Vlaming said he “tried to accommodate the student by consistently using the student’s new preferred name and by avoiding the use of pronouns altogether.”
However, Alliance says school officials “ordered him to stop avoiding the use of pronouns to refer to the student, even when the student wasn’t present, and to start using pronouns inconsistent with the student’s sex.”
In December, the Virginia Supreme Court issued a ruling to reinstate Vlaming’s lawsuit following a lower court’s dismissal of the case. In its opinion, the commonwealth’s high court found that Virginia’s Constitution “seeks to protect diversity of thought, diversity of speech, diversity of religion, and diversity of opinion.”
On Monday, due to the settlement, Alliance attorneys filed a voluntary dismissal of the case, Vlaming v. West Point School Board.
The Center Square requested a comment from the school board, but did not receive a reply at the time of publication.
