The legal battle over a licensed clinical social worker’s office decor has escalated, with attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filing an opening brief on behalf of their client, Rod Theis, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The appeal challenges a lower court’s ruling that Theis must remove certain children’s books from behind his office desk when students are present.
Theis, who works for the InterMountain Education Service District (ESD), was ordered to remove the book covers for “He Is He,” “She Is She,” and “Johnny the Walrus” after a complaint labeled the display as “transphobic.” InterMountain ESD administrators subsequently cited the books for promoting a “binary view of gender.”
The ADF argues that the order violates Theis’s First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, as well as his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. According to the ADF, Theis, who was inspired by the books’ message of “hope for children” and embracing “how God made them to be,” simply displayed the covers as decoration.
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Double Standard Alleged
The core of the legal challenge rests on an alleged double standard within the ESD’s policy on office decoration. ADF attorneys point out that InterMountain and the schools it serves allow employees to display various personal items, including quotes, photos, and posters that convey political messages promoting unions, Black Lives Matter, and the LGBTQ+ movement.
“This case isn’t about books; it’s about public officials telling an employee that he isn’t allowed to express a view that differs from their own,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. Langhofer stressed that the government cannot “silence a speaker just because it disapproves of what he says,” arguing that InterMountain is unconstitutionally censoring Theis’s freedom of expression.
Censorship and Warning
InterMountain ESD labeled Theis’s display as “a hostile expression of animus toward another person relating to their actual or perceived gender identity” and explicitly prohibited “the expression of any views that promote a binary view of sex while actively promoting opposing views,” according to the ADF brief.
The ESD not only ordered Theis to remove the book covers but also warned him that “further conduct of this nature” would result in discipline, including termination of his employment.
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Theis stated that he wants “every student I work with to experience kindness, dignity, and respect,” but insisted that “Government officials are wrong to tell me I can’t express my sincere religious beliefs about male and female. Every American, including my coworkers, has the same freedom to express their own views on the subject.”
The ADF is urging the 9th Circuit to overturn the lower court’s ruling, arguing that InterMountain has created and implemented a “speech code” that infringes upon the constitutional rights of individuals who hold a biological view of gender.
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