In Virginia, Loudoun County Public Schools officials were warned Friday to revoke their suspension of a teacher for declining to use students’ preferred pronouns or face further legal action.
Tanner Cross, who taught at Leesburg Elementary School, was suspended after speaking publicly May 26 during a school board meeting in opposition to the system’s proposed policy that teachers must use the pronouns preferred by students rather than the pronouns consistent with their biological sex.
Cross was informed May 28 that he was being suspended “pending an investigation of allegation that [he] engaged in conduct that had a disruptive impact on the operations of Leesburg Elementary School.”
On Friday, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer told school officials in a letter that they must either revoke the suspension and excise all records of it from Cross’s personnel file or he will take further legal action.
“The First Amendment prohibits retaliation against public employees for speaking on matters of public concern. ‘A teacher’s exercise of his right to speak on issues of public importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employment.’ Pickering v. Bd. of Educ. of Twp. High Sch. Dist. 205,391 U.S. 563, 574 (1968),” Langhofer explained in his letter to school officials.
“Mr. Cross’s expression during public comment time at an open school board meeting was undoubtedly expression in his private capacity on a matter of public concern. Id. (teachers’ public expression regarding school board actions is protected speech); Janus v. Am. Fed’n of State, Cnty. & Mun. Emps., 138 S. Ct. 2448, 2476 (2018) (listing examples of matters of public concern); see also, Meriwether v.Hartop, 992 F.3d 492, 506-07 (6th Cir. 2021) (teachers’ use of pronouns is protected speech on a matter of public concern),” Langhofer continued.
