Former West Point High School French teacher Peter Vlaming of Virginia, defending his refusal to use a transgender student's preferred pronouns. In December 2018, Vlaming was fired from his position as a result.
Posted on 10/02/2019 8:43:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A Virginia teacher who was fired for not agreeing to use the preferred pronouns of a trans-identified student has filed a complaint against the school board that dismissed him.
Peter Vlaming, a former French teacher at West Point High School in Williamsburg, filed the complaint in the Circuit Court for the County of King William on Monday.
The lawsuit argued that the school board violated “Vlaming’s constitutional, statutory, and contractual rights” when they decided to fire him last year.
Vlaming is seeking a permanent injunction that allows him to be reinstated, a permanent injunction preventing the school board from punishing staff for their views on gender identity, $500,000 in damages for lost wages and benefits, and $500,000 in damages for “loss of reputation, pain, suffering, and emotional distress.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases, is helping to represent Vlaming.
ADF Legal Counsel Caleb Dalton said in a statement released Monday that he believes Vlaming's firing was “a crusade to compel conformity.”
“He works hard to make his students feel welcomed. In his French class, he always calls his students by the name they choose. He even used the student’s preferred masculine name and was willing to avoid using pronouns in the student’s presence,” said Dalton.
“He just didn’t want to be forced to use a pronoun that offends his conscience. That’s entirely reasonable, and it’s his constitutionally protected right. Tolerance, after all, is a two-way street.”
Last December, the West Point School Board unanimously decided to fire Vlaming over his refusal to use the chosen pronouns of a student who is biologically female but identifies as male.
Superintendent Laura Abel said in a statement released in December 2018 that school district leadership believed Vlaming was engaging in discrimination.
“That discrimination then leads to creating a hostile learning environment. And the student had expressed that. The parent had expressed that,” said Abel, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Soon after Vlaming was fired, a large group of West Point High School students staged a walkout in protest of the school board’s decision.
Forrest Rohde, the West Point High School junior who organized the walkout, told news outlets that the protest was not about the transgender student.
Rather, Rohde told NBC's Richmond affiliate they took issue with the school board “trying to force the teacher to conform to their ideologies with the threat of removal from the school.”
This is not a libtard urban hipster community. It should be interesting to watch.
Good lawsuit! $500,000 not near enough though.
Teacher fired. Was the Fairfax cop actually suspended for turning a wanted trespasser over to ICE? WTH Virginia?
And you’re right. It isn’t a libtard area. I live aboit 40 miles from West Point. Public schools are inundated everywhere though. I’m seeing more of the rural schools dealing with these people and their idiocy.
They don’t have a leg to stand on. They’ll be forced to admit in court they really fired the teacher because they didn’t like his conservative views.
Which has nothing to do with protecting transgender students.
Then why do the parents put up with this nonsense? The school board should be fired!
I thought this story took place in Gloucester but the article says West Point. They are both very rural areas. But as we all know, schools are a bastion of libtardism. So that is why I say the outcome should be interesting because I don’t think the voters are gonna back the School Board here.
This is why we need Trump making 5 more years of Supreme Court selections.
I heard this morning that he was sent for “additional training”. Sounds more like PC indoctrination. I would like the police union to get involved in this. The cop was following law but violated policy. This needs to go to arbitration.
“Tolerance, after all, is a two-way street.”
There goes his credibility with progressives.
My cousin who is a 30 year teacher, is faced with this right now. He is a Christian, and it goes against his beliefs. He is faced with immediate termination if he does not address this freak the way it wants. He is a wonderful teacher with a perfect teaching record, but just this one thing could end all that. In the meantime, he decided to address all students by their last names only to avoid any pronouns. Please keep him in your prayers. He is in the belly of the beast.
The guy is a French teacher. He teaches language, and to do that you have to teach grammar. The teacher’s entire purpose in the school is to teach kids how to do things like use the correct pronoun in a sentence.
French is a language where appropriate gender conjugations are necessary components to any part of understanding the grammar and thus the language. If you got a student who composes his and/or her identity around a flaunting of English grammar conventions, and the school is so dead set on letting that kid flaunt English grammar conventions that it puts that kid’s self selected pronouns above the importance of educating the students, you just can’t teach.
Please tell your cousin to absolutely never be alone with that student or even in a group smaller than 3-4. That student will create a scenario in which your cousin can be fired .
There are two genders, male and female. Gender confusion is a treatable mental disorder. That is, those folks are crazy.
This should be a no brainer ruling in favor of Vlaming. The school board members should be recalled and replaced because they have seriously disordered minds. They may be guilty of child abuse, by catering to, and encouraging a disturbed person.
Does anyone have the phone number of the law firm that represented that bakery against Oberlin College?
Cool. Come in every other day with a new identity and get the teacher/boss/coworker fired the first time he/she/whatever doesn’t address you by your flavor of the day.
Now, lets talk about one of the libs’ soapboxes - bullying.
Thanks! I’m sure he knows this, but I will remind him.
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