I'm a fan of religious liberty. Yeah, that's right. I said it. And, you know, I'm fan of those people who get behind religious liberty.

For example, the Alliance defending freedom. Oh, yes, you've heard about them. I wanted to talk to Tyson Langhofer. He's a senior counsel with ADF to kind of get an update on what's cooking. Tyson, welcome back.

Thanks for having me here. Well, I am a big fan of ADF. And I guess I wanted to talk to you about the Maryweather case. Dr. Nicholas Maryweather. Tell my audience who is that and what is this case that ADF is involved with right now.

Well, Dr. Maryweather is a professor of philosophy and religion at Shawnee State University. Been there for over 20 years and has a spotless record up till a couple of years ago when he had a student, a male student in his class who demanded to be referred to as a female.

Dr. Maryweather indicated that well, I can't do that, but I will refer to you by whether whatever name you choose. And I'll just avoid the use of pronouns. The student complained to the university, the university investigated and found that Dr. Maryweather, my other Dr. Maryweather had created a hostile environment.

And they put a letter in his file saying that he had violated their non discrimination policy and that if he did this in the future, that he would be further punished.

So we filed a lawsuit and just recently had some great news from the sixth circuit.

You had good news from now ADF, you guys are pretty good. So I'm never surprised to hear good news, but I'm always pleased. So tell us what happened.

Yeah, well, the court held that titles and pronouns they express a message and they're part of an important ongoing debate. And the court held that government can't compel ideological purity.

And they said basically the court, this great opinion has said if it had that power, then a university could require a professor to pass a professor to argue that war is just or a civil rights icon to criticize the freedom writers.

Or an atheist to be compelled to affirm that God exists. And they said that no one should be forced to express a message that violates their convictions. And so they upheld Dr. Maryweather's rights.

What had happened was the district court had dismissed the case and how that he didn't state any claims. So the six circuits reverse that opinion and said that he had in fact stated first amendment claims that if he proves what he alleged that he should win.

Because the government can't force professors to speak messages. They disagree with.

And so the very big deal Tyson isn't it. I mean, honestly, this is great news as I'm hearing you explain it. I am surprised, frankly, I'm not surprised to hear that ADF one, but I'm surprised in a case like this because we're living in such politically charged times that

the circuit six circuit court actually understood that this was compelled speech. Yeah, absolutely. It's very encouraging because what they understood was that if a university could punish Dr. Maryweather for declining to use a pronoun for declining to express a message that he agreed with.

So it could allow a public university who said we believe in the biological reality and we're not going to allow any professors to use preferred pronouns or to use gender identity pronouns. It also has that right.

It protects all professors, not just Dr. Maryweather, but all professors and it protects academic freedom and the ability to discuss important ideas and recognize that gender identity is an important debate that's going on right now.

And then if it suppresses Dr. Maryweather's beliefs here, it's going to suppress an important debate on an important topic.

I really, I'm amazed that we had a good decision on something like this. Now, I don't know much about how the law works. What kind of a precedent does this set? Have we had cases like this that have gone in the other direction? How far does the jurisdiction of this court go?

This is a really important case. This is the first case at the circuit level to address the issue of a professor being forced to use a preferred pronoun or being forced to speak messages they disagree with on the gender identity topic.

It's really big. It does only apply in the sixth circuit. However, this, you know, the circuits, they know what other circuits are doing and it will send a big message out there. And so it applies only to the states in the sixth circuit, but it is the fourth circuit to uphold the rights of professors to say that the professors have free speech rights when they're in their classroom on issues of teaching and scholarship.

Because that is a topic that's still out there. And this is the fourth one. And it's the second case that that ADF has been involved with. We also set the precedent in the fourth circuit as well.

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