Geraghty v. Jackson Local School District Board of Education
Description: The Jackson Local School District in Ohio requires its teachers to personally participate in the “social transition” of students who express a gender identity inconsistent with their sex by using the students’ preferred names and pronouns. District officials forced middle school English teacher Vivian Geraghty to resign because she wanted to refrain from speaking in a way that would violate her religious beliefs.
Ohio school district coughs up $450K to settle free speech case with teacher
AKRON, Ohio – Two years after filing a federal lawsuit against the Jackson Local School District, an Ohio teacher reached a favorable settlement agreement Wednesday after being forced to resign after declining to personally participate in the “social transition” of students who express a gender identity inconsistent with their sex by using the students’ preferred names and pronouns. To settle the teacher’s claims in Geraghty v. Jackson Local School District Board of Education, the school district agreed to pay Vivian Geraghty, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, $450,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees after violating her freedom of speech.
Geraghty taught English at Jackson Memorial Middle School in Massillon until district officials demanded her resignation because she wanted to refrain from speaking in a way that would violate her religious beliefs. Geraghty’s sincerely held religious beliefs and scientific understanding govern her view that a person is male or female based on sex, not personal identity, and participating in a student’s social transition violates those beliefs by forcing her to communicate messages she believes are untrue and harmful to the student.
“No school official can force a teacher to set her religious beliefs aside in order to keep her job,” said ADF Legal Counsel Logan Spena. “The school tried to force Vivian to accept and repeat the school’s viewpoint on issues that go to the foundation of morality and human identity, like what makes us male or female, by ordering her to personally participate in the social transition of her students. The First Amendment prohibits that abuse of power, and Jackson Local School District officials have learned that comes at a steep cost. Vivian resisted this unconstitutional demand and explained that her Christian faith made her unable to participate in her students’ social transition, and she has received just vindication for taking this stand.”
ADF attorneys recently favorably settled two similar cases in Virginia on behalf of teacher Peter Vlaming, who received $575,000 in his settlement, as well as teachers Deborah Figliola, Kristine Marsh, and Laura Nelson, who are receiving religious accommodations as district employees.
- Pronunciation guide: Spena (SPEE’-nuh)
The ADF Center for Academic Freedom is dedicated to protecting First Amendment and related freedoms for students and faculty so that everyone can freely participate in the marketplace of ideas without fear of government censorship.
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ABOUT Logan Spena
Logan Spena serves as legal counsel for the Center for Academic Freedom with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he defends the rights of students, professors, and organizations to speak, associate, and worship freely. Before joining ADF, Spena served as deputy policy director in the Missouri governor’s office, where he oversaw the state’s regulatory reform efforts and worked to approve legislation on many issues including education, foster care, and protecting the unborn. Spena graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2016, where he served as an editor on the Virginia Law Review. Spena earned his B.A. in Government: Political Theory from Patrick Henry College in 2012. He is a member of the Missouri bar.
ABOUT Tyson Langhofer
Tyson Langhofer serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom and director of its Center for Academic Freedom. Before joining ADF, Langhofer was a partner with Stinson Leonard Street LLP, where he worked as a commercial litigation attorney for 15 years and earned Martindale-Hubbell’s AV Preeminent® rating. Langhofer earned his Juris Doctor from Regent University School of Law, where he graduated cum laude in 1999. He obtained a B.A. in international business with a minor in economics from Wichita State University in 1996. A member of the bar in Virginia, Kansas, and Arizona, Langhofer is also admitted to practice in numerous federal district courts.