$450,000 settlement for Ohio teacher who refused to use students' pronouns

MASSILLON, Ohio (WCMH) -- An Ohio school district will pay $450,000 to a middle school teacher who resigned for refusing to address two transgender students by their preferred names and pronouns.

Jackson Local School District reached a settlement on Dec. 18 with the teacher, Vivian Geraghty, after she claimed in a 2022 lawsuit her First Amendment rights were violated when she was told to resign from a middle school language arts position. The agreement follows a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in August that said forcing Geraghty to use students' preferred names amounts to "compelled speech" and that the school's "pronoun practice was not neutral."

"The school tried to force Vivian to accept and repeat the school's viewpoint on issues that go to the foundation of morality and human identity, like what makes us male or female, by ordering her to personally participate in the social transition of her students," said Logan Spena, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that represented Geraghty. "The First Amendment prohibits that abuse of power, and Jackson Local School District officials have learned that comes at a steep cost."

Jackson Local Schools said in a statement the district "remains dedicated to navigating complex and changing legal environments in a manner that prioritizes student safety and well-being."

On the first day of the school year in August 2022, a week before Geraghty resigned, two of her students asked that she refer to them using names different from their names on the school's roster. The filing states Geraghty knew these requests were "part of the student's social transition" but disagreed because of her religious beliefs and "wanted those students out of her classroom."

Geraghty continued to refer to the students using their deadnames, the name a trans person was assigned at birth but that does not align with their gender identity, even after one of the students sent her a follow-up request through email. That student then reached out to a school counselor, writing that "one of my teachers dead-naming me all the time in class."

The language arts teacher then met with the middle school's principal, Kacy Carter, "to seek an accommodation so that students would not continue to feel uncomfortable." Geraghty told the principal that her religious conviction would not allow her to agree with the students' requests, and that she "wouldn't be comfortable using preferred names or pronouns because she would know what was behind it."

Geraghty was later called into a second meeting with Carter and Monica Myers, a district employee who said if Geraghty wouldn't comply with the students' preferred names, "it was going to be a problem," the filing states. From this point, the three individuals' accounts of the meeting differ but that Geraghty was sent back to her classroom after she reaffirmed that she would not comply.

A short time later that day, Geraghty was called back into a third meeting with Carter and Myers. While the suit states the accounts for this meeting also differ, Geraghty said the principal told her "if that is your final decision, then we need a letter of resignation effective today."

Carter and Myers claim Geraghty repeated she would not use preferred names. Myers then said "that's going to be problematic" and asked the teacher whether she was "really prepared to draw that line in the sand." The two claim Geraghty said she didn't think she could work for the middle school anymore and "I'll guess I'll resign."

Alliance Defending Freedom argued that the school did not propose other possible solutions, like moving the teacher to another classroom or having her address students by their last names. The suit also claimed the district implemented a pronoun policy that is not fairly enforced.

"Vivian resisted this unconstitutional demand and explained that her Christian faith made her unable to participate in her students’ social transition, and she has received just vindication for taking this stand," said Spena.

The district at the time said in a statement that it does not have a policy that requires teachers to use the preferred names or pronouns, but it does follow the Department of Education's Title IX ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.