A philosophy professor with a spurious "religious" objection to addressing students by their preferred pronouns has prevailed in his lawsuit against the university.
Meriwether sued in 2018 after he was disciplined, and a federal district court dismissed the suit for lack of standing. Then, last year a three-judge appellate panel revived the lawsuit and sent it back to the lower court, where Meriwether could have argued his First Amendment rights of free speech and religion and his 14th Amendment right to due process were violated."As part of the settlement, the university has agreed that Meriwether has the right to choose when to use, or avoid using, titles or pronouns when referring to or addressing students," the release from Meriwether's attorneys read. "Significantly, the university agreed Meriwether will never be mandated to use pronouns, including if a student requests pronouns that conflict with his or her biological sex."
Shawnee University called it an "economic decision.""Though we have decided to settle, we adamantly deny that anyone at Shawnee State deprived Dr. Meriwether of his free speech rights or his rights to freely exercise his religion," the school's statement read.
Meriwether 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, regardless of an individual’s feelings or desires.” He also believes that he cannot “affirm as true ideas and concepts that are not true.” Being faithful to his religion was never a problem at Shawnee State. But in 2016, things changed. At the start of the school year, Shawnee State emailed the faculty informing them that they had to refer to students by their “preferred pronoun[s].”
Meriwether asked university officials for more details about the new pronoun policy, and the officials confirmed that professors would be disciplined if they “refused to use a pronoun that reflects a student’s self-asserted gender identity.” What if a professor had moral or religious objections? That didn’t matter: The policy applied “regardless of the professor’s convictions or views on the subject.”
Meriwether has many false beliefs, obviously, but that is often true of religious liberty claimants and is irrelevant to the viability of their claim. What is relevant is that using student's preferred pronouns does not involve him in affirming as "true" any ideas and concepts: it involves him in observing norms of politeness and respect for students that contribute to the pedagogical function of the classroom. Shawnee State could clearly pass a rule that professors not refer to the students as "the idiot in the back row," or "the slob to my left," or "the dumb jock in the middle," or "jackass," or "Mr. Know-it-All" and on and on. Professor Meriwether can refer to trans women as "she" without abandoning any beliefs he has. Many religions may have views about sex and gender; none have views about pronouns. The 6th Circuit decision is a horrible precedent, but there is no guarantee the current Supreme Court might not affirm it if given the chance.
(Thanks to John Styles for the pointer.)
ADDENDUM: A reader asked, sensibly, whether the religious liberty claim would be stronger if, in fact, a religious sect adopted a view on pronouns. I think it would be somewhat stronger, but it should still yield before the institutional purpose of effective and respectful pedagogy.
Think of it this way: currently, a religious liberty claim on behalf of discriminating against Blacks would fail, not because the religious claim wasn't genuine (it could be), but because racial equality is a compelling (very important) state interest and prohibiting racial discrimination is esssential to realizing it, even if that means running roughshod over some religious beliefs. Equality based on sexual orientation and gender identity is not yet recognized as as important a goal, at least in certain parts of the benighted states of America, with the result that religious liberty claims on behalf of discrimination are treated more seriously by the courts. I hope that will change, but who knows anymore where this country is heading? But quite apart from that, institutions of higher education have a compelling interest in effective pedagogy, which means they can regulate the norms of faculty-student interaction with that goal in mind. That's an argument the courts should recognize, even now.
Recent Comments