Professor who wouldn't use trans student's pronouns wins $400K settlement

There's something to be said for being polite and being a rude. There's also something be learned that want someone to address you in a specific way doesn't make when others choose not to do it.

I think Westley Snipes character said it best with, "that's who you remind me of an evil Mr Rogers" and "look, you can't take away people's right to be an assholes"

I think this professor is absolutely rude and is hiding behind his Christianity and using it as an excuse to offend people but free societies have lots of offensive people and "toughen up buttercup" is something people need to learn. I do think instead of people expecting the world to conform to them they should do a little bit of their own self-reflection and say they will accept that others are offensive and as long as that offensiveness does not deprive them of their education, in this case, or their participation in society then practice some of the acceptance and tolerance that they want people to have of them.

The smart student would simply begin to address the professor in a way that they consider offensive. Then when the professor attempts to discipline or correct them because of it they simply appeal indicating that as long as the professor will address them in a way that they perceive offensive they will address the professor in a way that the professor perceives offensive. Equality is equal for all. Then if the professor wishes to foster a rude classroom then a rudeness is the speech of the day.

My religious beliefs include reproductive health care services as part of insurance, insulting jerks like this, and 4 day work weeks for 3 days of worship. If I stop showing up on Fridays and I get fired, does this mean I can sue? What a farce.

A small, public university in Ohio agreed last week to pay one of its professors $400,000 after it rebuked him for refusing to use a transgender student's preferred pronouns.

Shawnee State University, in Portsmouth, roughly 85 miles south of Columbus, warned Nicholas Meriwether, a philosophy professor, in 2018 about not using the pronouns.

In response, Meriwether, who is an evangelical Christian, filed a federal lawsuit against the university that year, contending that officials violated his constitutional rights by compelling him to speak in a way that contradicts his religious beliefs.

The settlement of the case follows a three-year legal battle that ended last year, with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Meriwether’s favor. Meriwether's legal representation, the Alliance Defending Freedom, applauded the agreement to compensate him.

“This case forced us to defend what used to be a common belief — that nobody should be forced to contradict their core beliefs just to keep their job,” Travis Barham, senior counsel for the alliance, said in a statement last week. “Dr. Meriwether went out of his way to accommodate his students and treat them all with dignity and respect, yet his university punished him because he wouldn’t endorse an ideology that he believes is false."

Meriwether's settlement included a payout for his attorney fees and assurance from the university that he will "never be mandated to use pronouns, including if a student requests pronouns that conflict with his or her biological sex," according to ADF's statement.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm based in Arizona, has a decadeslong track record of litigating against LGBTQ rights, and has been labeled an anti-LGBTQ “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a designation ADF disputes. According to its website, the group aims to secure “generational wins” to ensure that “the law respects God’s creative order for marriage, the family, and human sexuality.”

Over the last decade or so, the ADF's funding has more than doubled, from over $34.5 million in 2011 to more than $76 million in 2021.

Shawnee State said in a statement last week that it "adamantly" denies that it "deprived Dr. Meriwether of his free speech rights or his rights to freely exercise his religion," and called the settlement an "economic decision."

"We continue to stand behind a student’s right to a discrimination-free learning environment as well as the rights of faculty, visitors, students and employees to freely express their ideas and beliefs," the university said. "Over the course of this lawsuit, it became clear that the case was being used to advance divisive social and political agendas at a cost to the university and its students. That cost is better spent on fulfilling Shawnee State’s mission of service to our students, families and community."