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Federal appeals court rules in favor of professor who refused to use preferred pronouns of transgender student
by Nolan Barton

(Natural News) The Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit on Friday, March 26, unanimously ruled that an Ohio professor can sue Shawnee State University in southern Ohio for violating his constitutional rights after he was disciplined for refusing to use the preferred pronouns of a transgender student.

Nicholas Meriwether, a philosophy professor at Shawnee State, filed a lawsuit in 2018 after the school formally disciplined him for refusing to follow a school policy requiring the use of a student’s pronouns that match his or her gender identity.

The decision by a three-judge panel reversed a previous district court ruling that dismissed Meriwether’s claims.

In the majority opinion, Judge Amul Thapar wrote that while transgender issues are “hotly contested,” the school had trampled on Meriwether’s free speech rights by not allowing him reasonable freedom in how he addresses his students.

“If professors lacked free-speech protections when teaching, a university would wield alarming power to compel ideological conformity,” Thapar wrote in the court’s 32-page opinion. “A university president could require a pacifist to declare that war is just, a civil rights icon to condemn the Freedom Riders, a believer to deny the existence of God, or a Soviet émigré to address his students as ‘comrades.’ That cannot be.”

Continues:

https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-03-31-appeals-court-rules-professor-can-sue-university.html

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