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Shawnee State College in Ohio has reached a settlement with a professor whom it punished for refusing to make use of a transgender scholar’s most popular pronouns, in keeping with a brand new report.
The college pays philosophy professor Nick Meriwether $400,000 in damages and legal professional charges and can rescind a written warning it issued to Meriwether in June 2018 in response to a organic male scholar’s grievance that the professor refused to make use of feminine pronouns for the scholar, Fox Information reported.
The controversy started in January 18 when Meriwether responded to the scholar’s query throughout a political philosophy class by saying, “Sure, sir.” After class, the scholar advised the professor that the scholar is transgender and requested to be known as a girl going ahead, together with with “female titles and pronouns,” in keeping with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Meriwether in court docket.
The professor argued that obliging the scholar’s requests would violate his personal convictions as a Christian. When the professor declined to make use of feminine pronouns, the scholar turned belligerent and advised Meriwether he could be fired, in keeping with court docket paperwork cited by Fox Information.
The coed then filed a grievance with Shawnee State, which opened an investigation into the incident. The college discovered that the professor “successfully created a hostile setting” for the scholar by not utilizing the popular pronouns. Meriwether provided to name the scholar by any identify requested, nonetheless. The coed didn’t settle for the professor’s supply, in keeping with the report.
The college positioned a written warning within the professor’s personnel file warning that “additional corrective actions” could possibly be taken if the same incident occurred.
Meriwether then sued the college, arguing that it violated his “proper to free train of faith beneath the First Modification.”
The settlement comes after the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the sixth Circuit reversed a district court docket’s dismissal of the lawsuit in March 2021, permitting the professor’s lawsuit to maneuver ahead.
ADF introduced final week that it reached a settlement with the college.
“Public universities ought to welcome mental and ideological range, the place all college students and professors can have interaction in significant discussions with out compromising their core beliefs,” mentioned ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Middle for Educational Freedom. “Dr. Meriwether rightly defended his freedom to talk and keep silent, and never conform to the college’s demand for uniformity of thought. We commend the college for finally agreeing to do the best factor, consistent with its cause for existence as a market of concepts.”
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