The Loudoun County School Board in Virginia has agreed to a settlement that walks back disciplinary action against a physical education teacher who refuses to call students by their preferred pronouns.
Legal teams for the Alliance Defending Freedom and the school board argued in court whether a Loudon County Public Schools transgender policy should stand. Policy 8040 requires that schools in the district undertake certain measures to ensure the safety and well-being of transgender students.
The teacher at the center of this is Byron "Tanner" Cross, who will now return to his job at Leesburg Elementary School. He and other teachers still plan to continue fighting against Policy 8040.
Cross was suspended from his position in May after speaking out against Policy 8040 during a school board meeting.
"I'm a teacher, but I serve God first, and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it's against my religion, it's lying to a child, it's abuse to a child, and it's sinning against our God," he said.
In the proceedings, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys representing Cross and other LCPS teachers argued that the transgender student policy was an affront to their clients' rights to free speech and freedom of religious expression and that it violated their due process rights.
They also slammed the transgender student policy as "what we call the 'pronoun mandate,'" stating that it "violates the Virginia Constitution because it tramples on free speech and religious expression."
The attorneys also asserted that their clients had reason to fear punitive action from the school board over their refusal to use transgender students' asserted names or pronouns.
Stacey Haney argued that the notion this policy was a violation of rights was void because First Amendment protections to speech don't have the same scope when applied to public employees using speech in the execution of their duties.
"Mr. Cross goes to a school board meeting and speaks at public comment — that's a matter of public concern," Haney argued, per Loudoun Times.
She went on to cite the Supreme Court precedent set by Garcetti v. Ceballos, stating that "any speech that is carried out in the function of his official duties as a teacher — that's not a matter of public concern."
Since Cross was at the meeting as a teacher representing the school, she argued, he did not have the right to express such views.
Cross was on leave for two days after his school board meeting statement on May 25. The ADF filed suit against the school board on his behalf on June 1, with other teachers joining the suit in September. Still, a temporary injunction reinstating Cross' employment was issued on June 8. Now that reinstatement is permanent.
The settlement had the school board agree to a permanent injunction barring them from punishing Cross for any comments about the policy made up to and through that point. The school agreed to wipe disciplinary actions from Cross' personnel file and pay $20,000 in attorney's fees.
The battle surrounding Policy 8040 is not over, however. Cross and others affected by the policy plan to fight it, but defenders are ready for the battle.
