Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 1, 2022 / 15:40 pm (CNA).
A Kansas middle school teacher will receive $95,000 in a settlement with her school district, which tried to force her to comply with its gender policies — even if it meant lying to parents about their children’s gender transitions.
Pamala Ricard, who has taught K-12 math for decades, currently teaches grades sixth through eighth at Fort Riley Middle School in Fort Riley, Kansas.
In early 2021, school administrators began implementing “diversity and equity” training and policies for teachers, instructing them to refer to students by their “preferred names” in the classroom.
In April 2021, Ricard was suspended for three days and received a written reprimand filed under the school’s “bullying” and “harassment” policies because she called a female student by her legal name instead of her preferred name.
Afterward, the school announced a new policy mandating that teachers call students by their preferred names and pronouns and “not communicate this information to parents unless the student requests, according to the district-wide policy sent to teachers.
If not, teachers would be found guilty of committing a “discriminatory act” and were “subject to employee discipline,” the complaint said.
Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Ricard filed the lawsuit in March against school officials because the policies violated her religious beliefs and conscience as a Christian.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas ruled in May that Ricard’s case would proceed based on her First Amendment religious exercise rights. The ruling paused the school’s policy preventing parents from knowing of their child’s gender transition and exempted Ricard from being forced to use students’ preferred pronouns.
“No school district should ever force teachers to willfully deceive parents or engage in any speech that violates their deeply held religious beliefs,” ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, said in a statement.
The lawsuit was dismissed Wednesday after school officials agreed to settle by paying Ricard $95,000 and issuing a statement absolving Ricard of any disciplinary charges they brought against her.
The school board also revoked its policy that prohibited teachers from notifying parents of their child’s gender transition.
A spokesperson for the school district was not immediately available Thursday afternoon.
“We’re pleased to settle this case favorably on behalf of Pam, and 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,” the ADF’s Langhofer concluded.
Ricard’s case is not an isolated incident. ADF is currently representing teachers and parents free of charge across the country in litigation over gender policies.
As CNA reported earlier this week, the rise of gender policies in schools across the nation is creating problems for teachers of faith who object to concealing critical information from parents about their children.
Last year, for example, a New York middle school implemented a gender support plan that referred a 12-year-old girl to a clinic that prescribes puberty blockers and conducts irreversible sex-change surgeries.
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Is bullying LGBTQ children until they unalive themselves a commandment from God?
Some people are born with absolutely no inherent worth, sounds like Pam is one of them.
Addressing someone by their legal name is not bullying.
Your comment is vile, but also revealing. Thus, I’ve put it through.
The adjective ‘vile’ is not used much these days – it is a bit dated.
Here it fits – perhaps its rarity makes it stand out more here.
I had not encountered the idiotic term “unalive” before.
No human being is born with “absolutely no inherent worth”. Please see Matthew 18:12–14 and Luke 15:3–7.
Bullying is when health care professionals for irrevocably extirpating healthy and useful body parts. Add to that a fee.
Only the unalive or persons unable or unwilling to discern reality from fantasy will see such cruelty and brutality as good.
I was not clear.
BULLYING is when health care professionals irrevocably extirpate healthy and useful body parts. Then add a fee.
Hey, the whole broohaha is really intercultural.
Alongside the administrators of our government schools, their counterpart imams in Islamic countries impose female genital mutilation of girls–different but not absolutely so–in Somalia, Egypt, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Gambia, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia.
What a great diversity topic for “dialogue” at the next school board meeting!
And, aside from the issue of religious freedom, there’s also the science thingy…As an early example, authors of the leading 2019 study–which claimed so-called gender-transition surgery may improve the long-term mental health of recipients–issued a CORRECTION, only a year after publication. And before 2022. The authors of the study—Richard Bränström, Ph.D., and John E. Pachankis, Ph.D.—report that: “the results actually demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care.” It seems that the huge data-dump was initially misinterpreted. Fake science. Gotta watch placement of those decimal points!
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/08/04/researchers-reverse-gender-surgery-offers-no-advantage-to-mental-health/
TBTG and the ADF.