MASSILLON, Ohio (WCMH) -- A former Ohio middle school teacher is headed to trial after she resigned for refusing to address two transgender students by their preferred names and pronouns, and asked to have them removed from her classroom.
The teacher, Vivian Geraghty, alleged in a 2022 lawsuit against Jackson Local School District her First Amendment rights were violated when she was told to resign from a middle school language arts position. After nearly two years of back and forth, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio ruled this month that forcing Geraghty to use students' preferred names amounts to "compelled speech" and said the school's "pronoun practice was not neutral."
However, the court also decided the case must still go to trial to determine whether her resignation was by force and if the First Amendment protects Geraghty's unwillingness to call the trans students by their preferred names.
"The court concludes that there are genuine disputes of material face about whether Geraghty involuntarily resigned and, if she did, whether her protected conduct [if there was any] caused her to resign," the Aug. 12 filing written by U.S. District Judge Pamela Baker states.
Jackson local schools did not respond to NBC4's request for new a statement but previously said the "district always will strive to provide a safe, comfortable environment for all of our nearly 6,000 students in which to learn" and "will have no further comment on pending litigation."
On the first day of the school year in August 2022, a week before Geraghty resigned, two of her students asked that she refer to them using names different from their names on the school's roster. The filing states Geraghty knew these requests were "part of the student's social transition" but disagreed because of her religious beliefs and "wanted those students out of her classroom."
Geraghty continued to refer to the students using their deadnames, the name a trans person was assigned at birth but that does not align with their gender identity, even after one of the students sent her a follow-up request through email. That student then reached out to a school counselor, writing that "one of my teachers dead-naming me all the time in class."
The language arts teacher then met with the middle school's principal, Kacy Carter, "to seek an accommodation so that students would not continue to feel uncomfortable." Geraghty told the principal that her religious conviction would not allow her to agree with the students' requests, and that she "wouldn't be comfortable using preferred names or pronouns because she would know what was behind it."
Geraghty was later called into a second meeting with Carter and Monica Myers, a district employee who said if Geraghty wouldn't comply with the students' preferred names, "it was going to be a problem," the filing states. From this point, the three individuals' accounts of the meeting differ but that Geraghty was sent back to her classroom after she reaffirmed that she would not comply.
A short time later that day, Geraghty was called back into a third meeting with Carter and Myers. While the suit states the accounts for this meeting also differ, Geraghty said the principal told her "if that is you final decision, then we need a letter of resignation effective today."
Carter and Myers claim Geraghty repeated she would not use preferred names. Myers then said "that's going to be problematic" and asked the teacher whether she was "really prepared to draw that line in the sand." The two claim Geraghty said she didn't think she could work for the middle school anymore and "I'll guess I'll resign."
The lawsuit was filed by Alliance Defending Freedom, a national conservative organization, on behalf of Geraghty in December of 2022. The organization argued that the school did not propose other possible solutions, like moving the teacher to another classroom or having her address students by their last names. The suit also claimed the district implemented a pronoun policy that is not fairly enforced.
However, the district at the time said in a statement that it does not have a policy that requires teachers to use the preferred names or pronouns, but it does follow the Department of Education's Title IX ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Alliance Defending Freedom said in a social media post at the time that Geraghty could not "set aside" her beliefs to "affirm untruths that harm children."
"The school tried to force Vivian to recite as true 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," said the group's legal counsel Logan Spena. "The First Amendment prohibits that abuse of power.”
