The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a public-school teacher could not have a preliminary injunction against a state law.
Liberty Counsel reports this case is Wood v. Florida Department of Education. The teacher from a Florida high school in Hillsborough County is a man whose name is Wood, who identifies as a woman and wants coworkers and students to address him differently.
The law, Fla. Stat. § 1000.071, says in effect that an employee or contractor of a public K through 12 educational institution is not able to ask students to refer to him or her by a preferred name or pronouns when the name or pronouns do not match the person's sex.
Wood argued that this law is against his First Amendment rights. The Northern District Court in Florida originally granted the injunction on the grounds that preferred pronouns is a part of free speech as a private citizen.
Liberty Counsel's Daniel Schmid shared his thoughts with AFN.
"Florida passed a pretty common-sense statute that prohibits teachers from ignoring biological reality and mandating that their students (address them) – and using it themselves – by pronouns that don't align with their biological sex," Schmid explains. "The limitation is that, while you're on the clock teaching subjects that we pay you to teach, espousing what we tell you to espouse, you're not permitted to require your students to refer to you by a pronoun or name other than one that matches your biological sex.”
The Eleventh Circuit said no; that Wood being forbidden to use a preferred name and pronouns in the classroom is not a First Amendment violation. It ruled that, in that environment, he would be using the titles as a government employee and not as a private citizen.
Schmid referenced students who have religious beliefs or are being taught at home that transgenderism is a rejection of reality.
"You might feel pressured to ignore your values to get a good grade. I mean, the teacher in front of you is the one going to grade your papers, and if you're refusing to abide by their fantasy, then you might suffer the consequences. Of course, we don't want to put our students in that position, so they passed the law that prohibited that,” states Schmid.
