GEARY COUNTY, KS – Last week, a lawsuit was settled in Kansas, awarding a former middle school teacher $95,000 for a wrongful suspension over gender pronoun use.
Pamela Ricard, who retired in May of 2022 as an elective math strategies teacher for Fort Riley Middle School, was represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and fought against the 2021 suspension, claiming her religious exemption request for the school’s pronoun policy was ignored.
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Ricard had been at the school since 2005. She filed the lawsuit in March after she received a “formal reprimand” and a three-day suspension in 2021 for not calling a biological girl a boy’s pronouns. Ricard said that the school counselor told her that the student preferred to be called a different name than what is on her enrollment papers, and another student told Ricard that the female student in question preferred to be addressed by the he/him pronouns.
Ricard also stated that the student herself never asked Ricard to address her any differently. Further, in order to attempt to accommodate the student without compromising her own religious beliefs, Ricard referred to the student as “Miss [student’s legal last name].” Ricard stated the address was “intended to be respectful.”
The district did not have a “formal policy” regarding names and/or pronouns a student may prefer, and said her suspension was justified under “generic policies related to staff bullying.”
When Ricard returned from her suspension, the school held a training on “diversity.” In October, the school’s policy was updated to say that a student could request any name and pronoun, and parents would not be notified unless the student asked for them to be. The school was forced to backtrack on that policy, however, after a judge said Ricard didn’t have to follow the pronoun aspect, although she did have to use the student’s preferred name.
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The lawsuit says that Ricard “holds sincere religious beliefs consistent with the traditional Christian and biblical understand of the human person and biological sex.”
It goes on to say, “Ms. Ricard believes that God created human beings as either male or female, that this sex is fixed in each person from the moment of conception, and that it cannot be changed, regardless of an individual person’s feelings, desires, or preferences.”
Thus, forcing Ricard to comply with “preferred pronouns” is a violation of her religious beliefs, the complaint stated.
The school district agreed to settle with Ricard for $95,000 and ADF withdrew the lawsuit.
In a statement, ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer said, “No school district should ever force teachers to willfully deceive parents or engage in any speech that violates their deeply held religious beliefs.
“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.”
Further, ADF Attorney Joshua Ney said, “The Geary County School District unsuccessfully tried to convince a federal court that a teacher should completely avoid using a child’s name during a parent-teacher conference in order to hide new names and genders being used by the school for a child in a classroom. Absurdity and deception has its limits, especially in federal court. I’m glad the case clarifies the financial stakes for school boards if they attempt to force teachers to lie to parents about their students.”
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