“A divided federal appeals court has upheld an Indiana school district’s firing of a music teacher who refused to address transgender students by their first names and pronouns for religious reasons,” writes Mark Walsh in Monday’s (4/10) Education Week. “A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, in Chicago, ruled 2-1 on April 7 that the Brownsburg, Ind., school district’s decision to end a nearly school-year-length attempt to accommodate the teacher by allowing him to use only last names to refer to all his students did not violate the teacher’s rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ‘The last-names-only practice conflicted with the school’s philosophy of affirming and respecting all students because the undisputed evidence showed that the accommodation resulted in students feeling disrespected, targeted, and dehumanized, and in disruptions to the learning environment,’ the 7th Circuit majority said … The decision has larger implications for transgender students’ rights across the country, as a handful of public school teachers have raised religious objections to addressing students by new names and pronouns after a gender transition…. The 134-page 7th Circuit opinion in the case of teacher John M. Kluge provides a detailed narrative of the controversy…. Kluge was the sole music and orchestra teacher at the high school.”
