Peter Vlaming in 2018. (WRIC)
A French teacher has settled with the Virginia school board that fired him for refusing to use a transgender boy’s pronouns.
Peter Vlaming will receive $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees, said his legal team at the Alliance Defending Freedom, a far-right advocacy organization known for filing lawsuits aimed at rolling back the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender people.
“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,” he said in a statement. “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. I’m very grateful for the work of my attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom to bring my case to victory, and hope it helps protect every other teacher and professor’s fundamental First Amendment rights.”
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West Point Public Schools Superintendent Larry Frazier told Newport News outlet The Daily Press that “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.”
The Virginia Supreme Court last December reinstated Vlaming’s lawsuit, which the Circuit Court of King William County had previously dismissed.
“[N]o 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 decision also said. The judges found that the lower court “erred dismissing this claim on demurrer on the ground that Vlaming’s factual allegations, even if assumed to be true, were insufficient as a matter of law to state a free-exercise claim” under Virginia law.
