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Three Harrisonburg City teachers renewed their lawsuit against the Harrisonburg City School Board on Friday, referencing the Supreme Court of Virginia’s 2023 opinion that school boards may not compel an employee, over their objection, to refer to a student by pronouns that don’t correspond with the student’s sex.
On Friday, Alliance Defending Freedom, representing the Harrisonburg teachers, filed the brief in Rockingham County Circuit Court. In June 2022, Harrisonburg City teachers Deborah Figliola, Kristine Marsh, and Laura Nelson filed a lawsuit challenging the school board’s decisions that they claim “violate Virginia’s Free Speech Clause and the Virginia Religious Freedom Restoration Act by compelling them to speak a message to which they object,” the attorneys stated.
The legal team recently settled a case for a former high school French teacher who declined to refer to a transgender student by his requested pronouns. The case ended with the West Point School Board agreeing to pay $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees.
Va. school board to pay $575K to fired teacher who refused to use transgender student’s pronouns
Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization focused on protecting religious rights, claimed the teachers were directed to “immediately implement” three practices through a series of trainings: asking students their preferred pronouns; always using them, even when contrary to a student’s sex; and doing so without notifying parents or seeking their consent.
ADF Senior Counsel Vincent Wagner said by doing so, the Harrisonburg City School Board is compelling its employees to refer to students by their pronouns that don’t correspond with their sex.
“[Figliola, Marsh, and Nelson] like all School Board employees, face a choice: comply with the trainings’ ‘Best Practices’ or risk losing their jobs,” the brief read.
Wagner added that Virginia’s Constitution and other laws contain “robust free speech” and “free exercise protections for public employees, and let teachers do their jobs. Because of those protections, we urge the court to rule for our clients.”
In September 2022, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration overhauled the state’s policies for transgender and nonbinary students to require parental approval for any changes to students’ “names, nicknames, and/or pronouns.”
The changes also included a directive to schools to keep parents “informed about their children’s well-being,” and a mandate that student participation in activities and athletics be based on sex and the use of bathrooms correspond to a students’ sex, “except to the extent that federal law requires.”
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