A French teacher who refused to use a transgender student’s pronouns has reached a staggering $575,000 settlement with the Virginia school that fired him.
Peter Vlaming, who taught at West Point High School for around seven years, was fired in 2019 after he declined to use he/him pronouns for a pupil who had transitioned.
Instead, Vlaming insisted on using the student’s preferred name, which prompted school leaders to order him to stop avoiding the pronouns. When Vlaming refused to budge, he was dismissed.
The ousted French teacher proceeded to file a $1 million blockbuster lawsuit against the West Point School Board.
On Monday, the settlement between Vlaming, who now works in publishing, and the school board was signed.
The settlement dictated that the teacher will receive $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees. West Point also expunged Vlaming’s firing from his record.
Vlaming was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative non-profit legal group.
In a statement, the French teacher said that he was fired from his position because of ‘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.
He went on to state that he ‘loved’ teaching French and that he ‘gracefully tried to accommodate every student’ in his class.
‘But I couldn’t say something that directly violated my conscience,’ Vlaming said, before thanking his attorneys.
Tyson Langhofer, the Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, was more blunt.
‘Peter wasn’t fired for something he said; he was fired for something he couldn’t say. The school board violated his First Amendment rights under the Virginia Constitution and commonwealth law,’ Langhofer said.
Last December, the Virginia Supreme Court reinstated Vlaming’s lawsuit, which had previously been dismissed by the Circuit Court of King William County.
The decision stated that 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 judges ruled that the lower court had ‘erred dismissing this claim.’
In its ruling, the Virginia High Court determined that ‘objectionable’ and ‘hurtful’ language is sometimes the price one must pay for free speech.
The opinion said: ‘When religious liberty merges with free-speech protections, as it does in this case, mere ‘objectionable’ and ‘hurtful’ religious speech or, as in this case, non-speech, is not enough to meet this standard.”
In a statement to the Daily Press, West Point Schools Superintendent Larry Frazier expressed relief over the ruling.
‘We are pleased to be able to reach a resolution that will not have a negative impact on the students, staff or school community of West Point,’ Frazier said.