A Riverside County faculty district has agreed to pay $360,000 to settle a lawsuit from a former instructor who was fired final 12 months after refusing to stick to insurance policies concerning transgender or gender-nonconforming college students, citing her Christian beliefs.
Jessica Tapia, who taught bodily training at Jurupa Valley Excessive College, claimed in her wrongful termination lawsuit that her free speech and non secular rights had been violated. She had refused — hypothetically, in statements to district personnel — to make use of college students’ most well-liked pronouns, to permit them to make use of the locker room matching their gender identification, or to “withhold data” from mother and father about their baby’s gender identification, in keeping with the federal lawsuit.
The Jurupa Unified College District didn’t admit any wrongdoing, however agreed to pay Tapia $285,000, in addition to $75,000 for her attorneys’ charges, in keeping with the settlement settlement signed Tuesday. Tapia additionally agreed to not search future employment with the district, and either side agreed to not disparage one another or file future lawsuits.
Julianne Fleischer, one in all Tapia’s attorneys, known as the settlement an “unbelievable victory.”
“Her spiritual beliefs weren’t accommodated once they may have been,” mentioned Fleischer, authorized counsel for Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a Murrieta-based nonprofit spiritual liberties group. “We expect it sends a robust message that there’s a worth to pay if you ask a instructor to lie and withhold data.”
Jacquie Paul, a Jurupa Unified spokesperson, mentioned the settlement was a “compromise of a disputed declare.”
“The choice to settle this case was made … in one of the best curiosity of the scholars, such that the district can proceed to dedicate all of its assets and efforts to teach and assist its scholar inhabitants no matter their protected class,” Paul mentioned in a press release.
The case is only one of a number of lawsuits difficult how the rights of transgender college students, their mother and father and academics needs to be balanced — disputes which have fashioned the spine of California’s education culture wars.
Below California’s anti-discrimination legal guidelines, federal and state legal guidelines, a transgender or gender-nonconforming scholar’s identification shouldn’t be shared, together with with their mother and father, with out the scholar’s permission, in keeping with the California Department of Education.
However in Tapia’s case, her attorneys argued there was by no means an occasion when she didn’t abide by faculty and state insurance policies, as a result of it by no means got here up in her tenure.
As a substitute, her termination stemmed from a number of of her social media posts, which college students discovered offensive and reported for his or her content material about transgender individuals and faith. When faculty officers requested her to curb her social media exercise and comply with comply with sure district insurance policies concerning transgender college students’ privateness and rights, she refused, citing her Christian beliefs.
Tapia requested a spiritual lodging, saying the district’s insurance policies went towards her beliefs “concerning human sexuality and mendacity,” in keeping with her lawsuit.
Fleischer mentioned her group has respect for the transgender group, however this case affirms that “spiritual rights will not be second class.”
Paul mentioned the district will “proceed to comply with all native, state and federal legal guidelines, together with legal guidelines towards harassment and discrimination to guard its college students and workers.”
Tapia was employed by the district in 2014, first in its place and later full time, and taught each center faculty and highschool bodily training. She was fired in January 2023, in keeping with the lawsuit.
Tapia publicly supported a invoice final 12 months that might have required academics to reveal to oldsters if their baby was gender-nonconforming or transgender. That invoice has since died in committee.
She is now serving to lead Advocates for Religion & Freedom’s new marketing campaign known as “Teachers Don’t Lie,” to assist different educators who really feel their religion is being compromised by faculty insurance policies.
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