Do We Have A Right To Discriminate?

Well that is the question a Christian teacher is arguing about his being fired because he didn’t follow the schools non-discrimination policy.

Virginia school district leaders ask court to uphold teacher firing in transgender student case
Virginia Mercury
By Nathaniel Cline
uly 29, 2022


School board members from five Virginia localities and Richmond’s schools superintendent have signed onto an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of Virginia opposing a former teacher’s claim that he was unlawfully fired for violating his district’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies.

School board members who joined the brief include those from Arlington, Fairfax and Stafford counties, and the cities of Charlottesville and Falls Church.

The brief, which was submitted by LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Virginia and more than 35 signatories, asks the Supreme Court of Virginia to uphold the King William Circuit Court’s dismissal of former teacher Peter Vlaming’s lawsuit against the West Point School Board.

But the lawyers for the teacher is having none of that,

Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization focused on protecting religious freedoms, which is representing Vlaming, said Vlaming consistently accommodated the student by using the student’s preferred name instead of his given name.

“Peter wasn’t fired for something he said; he was fired for something he couldn’t say,” said ADF Senior Counsel Chris Schandevel in a statement in March. 

“As a teacher, Peter was passionate about the subject he taught, he was well-liked by his students, and he did his best to accommodate their needs and requests,” he said. “But Peter could not in good conscience speak messages that he does not believe to be true.”

He might be passionate about teaching but all the teachers that I know teach because they like making difference and impacting the lives of children. Tell me then why a teacher would want to negatively impact and cause mental health issues children? Isn’t that the antithesis of why a teacher wants to teach?

“The harm of differentiating transgender students from their peers and failing to affirm their identities is well-established in the courts,” said S. Douglas Bunch, an attorney with Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, in a statement. 

“Sadly, this effect is magnified when the hostile actor is a teacher,” he said. “School policies, such as one of using pronouns that reflect a transgender student’s identity, are there to mitigate these harms and allow all students to thrive in school.”

I think that he should find another job, he is not cut out to teach, he puts himself ahead of the students wellbeing.