A college professor who faced the professional guillotine for a pronoun dispute has been spared by a federal appeals court.
Late last month the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that Shawnee State University, a public college in Ohio, violated Professor Nicholas Meriwether’s First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of religion and directed that a lawsuit brought on those grounds can proceed.
In a statement, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the religious liberty group that defended Meriwether, noted, “No one should be forced to speak a message with which they disagree. No one should be bullied or banished from the marketplace of ideas for peacefully living out their beliefs. And no professor’s career at a public university should be threatened because intolerant university administrators dislike his view.”
“Yet, that is exactly what has happened to Dr. Meriwether, and that is exactly why the 6th Circuit just ruled in his favor.”
According to court documents, the flare-up began in 2016 when Shawnee State implemented a policy that forced employees to call anyone who set foot on campus, including visitors, by their “preferred pronouns.” Meriwether, a devout Christian, and a philosophy professor questioned whether a religious exemption applied.
He was told no. In fact, court records say, when he approached his department chairwoman about the policy, her reaction was “derisive and scornful,” and despite Meriwether’s 20-plus years of successful teaching at the school, she noted, Christians were “primarily motivated out of fear” and should be “banned from teaching courses regarding that religion.” She also said the “presence of religion in higher education is counterproductive.”
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In 2018, Meriwether taught a class on political philosophy and encountered a transgender student, identified in court records as Jane Doe.
In first meeting Doe, Meriwether, not noticing any outward reason not to do so, replied “Yes sir” when Doe asked a question. Doe complained, demanding the professor use feminine pronouns. Although Doe did not have a problem with Meriwether academically, Doe was not satisfied, even after Meriwether seemed to have reached a compromise with senior administrators by agreeing to refer to Doe by last name only.
Ultimately, the university insisted that Meriwether drop the use of sex-based pronouns or comply with the policy, which applied “regardless of the professor’s convictions or views on the subject.” When Meriwether slipped once and referred to Doe as “Mister,” another compliant ensued. Administrators opened an investigation, issued a formal reprimand, and threatened Meriwether with “corrective actions,” including possible suspension or termination if he failed to abide by the student’s request.
After exhausting his internal appeals without relief, Meriwether believed he had no choice but to sue Shawnee State to save his job.
A trial court rejected his claim. But then last month, the appellate court reinstated it.
In its unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel determined that Shawnee State “punished a professor for his speech on a hotly contested issue. And it did so despite the constitutional protections afforded by the First Amendment.”
Regarding Meriwether’s right to free speech, the court ruled, “Government officials violate the First Amendment whenever they try to ‘prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.’”
“If professors lacked free-speech protections when teaching, a university would wield alarming power to compel ideological conformity,” the court maintained.
“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.”
As for Meriwether’s faith, the court found that the school backtracked from an agreed-upon compromise, then launched an investigation that kept moving the goalposts on Meriwether.
“Meriwether has plausibly alleged that religious hostility infected the university’s interpretation and application of its gender-identity policy,” said the court, noting that the school’s stance – “adhere to the university’s orthodoxy (or face punishment)” – amounted to “coercion.”
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