French Teacher Fired for Rejecting Personal Pronouns Wins Lawsuit Almost 6 Years Later

The Daily Signal Podcast

The Daily Signal

News, Government, Politics, Daily News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2024

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

French teacher Peter Vlaming was fired in 2018 for shunning the use of pronouns to refer to a transgender-identifying student. On Sept. 30, the West Point School Board in Virginia agreed to pay him $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees. "I'm so relieved that our basic fundamental rights of freedom of expression, of freedom of religion have been formally upheld," Vlaming told The Daily Signal. The School Board cleared Vlaming’s termination from his record and changed its policies to conform to the new Virginia education policies established by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R-Va. Vlaming is a Christian, so he believes God created male and female. Still, the teacher was willing to respect the rights of his students to disagree. When one of his female students started identifying as male, Vlaming avoided referring to her with pronouns, instead using her preferred name. On Halloween of 2018, his students participated in a virtual reality tour of French catacombs, during which the transgender-identifying student almost ran into a wall. "Don't let her hit the wall!" Vlaming called out instinctively. The student called her parents, who complained to the school. Vlaming was placed on administrative leave and given an ultimatum that he would be fired if he didn't use preferred personal pronouns. Vlaming refused to comply and was fired. Nearly six years later, Vlaming, represented by the religious liberty nonprofit law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, won his case. "Stand your ground with love," Vlaming advises other teachers. "Stand your ground. Live truthfully with love. You'll give others courage as well. At least that's what I hope and pray for."

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Elizabeth Mitchell and this is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday October 15th.
0:10.7	I sat down with Virginia French teacher Peter Fleming who was fired from his job after
0:16.5	failing to use a student's preferred personal pronouns. He was recently awarded $575,000 by a Virginia court for his wrongful termination.
0:27.0	Now stay tuned for my conversation with Peter Fleming and his lawyer from Alliance defending freedom after this.
0:33.0	This is Rob Lewy from The Daily Signal.
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1:00.3	Visit Daily Signal.com slashate to help us keep Americans informed
1:05.0	and fight for conservative values.
1:07.0	The Daily Signal is your voice for the truth.
1:10.0	Peter, what's your background as a teacher?
1:15.0	Okay, sure.
1:17.0	So I'll back up a little bit and say that I always wanted to learn foreign languages when I was when I was
1:26.1	small and I was young and the first opportunity I had was in junior high and I loved French. I have some French heritage. I found that I love the way French sounded. It was for me and I know for many Americans associate French with history, philosophy, art, and just kind of being cultured.
1:50.0	And I thought that, well, if I can have a veneer of sophistication that would be great.
1:54.1	And I just continued learning all through high school and college and then finally taught in high school, started teaching in high school.
2:06.2	So I'm a high school French teacher.
2:08.9	When did you first encounter the school you were teaching at's pronoun policy?
2:14.2	I didn't even know it existed until after the fact.
	...

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