School pays Christian teacher $650k over trans policy dispute

A Christian fundamentalist teacher has been paid over $650,000 after claiming he was fired for refusing to respect a transgender student’s pronouns.

Music teacher John Kluge agreed to a settlement with his former workplace, Brownsburg Community Schools in Indiana, following nearly eight years of litigation over his dismissal.

In 2017, the school district introduced an update to its inclusivity policy requiring that staff respect trans students’ names and pronouns.

Kluge objected to the rule following its enactment, citing his conservative religious beliefs. He was afforded an exception which allowed him to only use the second name of students , according to local outlet IndyStar.

However, officials rescinded this exception in 2018 and gave the orchestra teacher an ultimatum – respect the pronouns and names of students, or resign. Kluge ultimately opted for the latter.

He then filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against Brownsburg, claiming the policy had forced him to choose between his career and his faith as a Christian fundamentalist.

Following eight years of complicated legal proceedings, which involved the case jumping between various courts across the US, both parties eventually agreed to a settlement of $650,000.

David Cortman, senior counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Kluge in the case, branded the inclusivity policy an “ideological mandate”, adding that he wanted the settlement to force schools to think twice before implementing rules that he believes “violate [staff’s] religious beliefs”.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Brownsburg school district said it was in the organisation’s best interest to settle the case and that officials remain firm that the policy does not infringe on Kluge’s first amendment rights.

“The school corporation has not wavered in its belief that Mr. Kluge’s decision to resign came after the school corporation followed its policy and applicable federal laws and acted in the best interest of its students,” they said.

Over the case’s complicated legal history, both Southern Indiana’s US District Court and the Seventh Circuit Court sided with Brownsburg in respective ruling opinions.

In 2021, US District Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson wrote in her ruling opinion on the case that the importance of respecting a person’s name outweighed any “sincerely held religious beliefs” that Kluge has on Brownsburg’s duty to respect its students.

The case was revived in 2023 by the US Supreme Court, which set a higher threshold for any subsequent rulings, requiring that they determine whether employers have a duty to accommodate an employee’s religious rights.

While the US District Court remained firm in its original ruling, the Seventh Circuit Court shifted its argument, claiming that the school had not proven its claim that Kluge’s religious beliefs were impossible to accommodate.

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