A former math strategies teacher at Fort Riley Middle School, Kansas has received a whopping $95,000 settlement after she was suspended for failing to refer to one of her students by their preferred name and pronouns. According to Business Insider, Pamela Ricard had filed her lawsuit against Geary County Schools back in March, but the matter wasn’t resolved until Wednesday when she was awarded the hefty sum in damages and attorney’s fees.
In her suit, Ricard, who has since retired, mentioned how she was given a suspension for three days last year, along with a formal written reprimand “for addressing a biologically female student by the student’s legal and enrolled last name.” She was therefore considered to be misgendering the student, whose classmates refer to the tutee using he/him pronouns, which prompted the school to intervene and issue strict discipline.
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When she returned from her three-day suspension, Ricard decided to appeal the school’s decision, stressing that due to her religious beliefs, she sees people “fixed” by the gender they were born at birth and that her own religion was not being taken into consideration when she was forced to forfeit her teaching duties because she didn’t call the student by their pronouns. “Ms. Ricard believes that God created human beings as either male or female, that this sex is fixed in each person from the moment of conception, and that it cannot be changed,” her attorneys argued in the complaint.
“Ms. Ricard is a Christian and holds sincere religious beliefs consistent with the traditional Christian and biblical understanding of the human person and biological sex.” Furthermore, referring to the student by their preferred name and pronouns had undoubtedly violated Ricard’s First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, they continued.
Officials for the school have since made a statement to say that Ricard left the school on good terms.