{"id":1549052,"date":"2022-07-11T17:01:46","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T21:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1549052"},"modified":"2022-07-11T17:01:46","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T21:01:46","slug":"should-schools-be-able-to-compel-speech-against-a-teachers-conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/should-schools-be-able-to-compel-speech-against-a-teachers-conscience\/","title":{"rendered":"Should schools be able to compel speech against a teacher\u2019s conscience?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fshould-schools-be-able-to-compel-speech-against-a-teachers-conscience%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1549052&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Compelled speech is not the same thing as free speech. Furthermore, forcing someone to speak something often comes at the expense of one\u2019s conscience \u2013 a thought that ought to send shudders down anyone\u2019s spine.<\/p>\n<p>With this in mind, should an educator \u2013 such as a foreign language teacher \u2013 be forced to exercise speech in violation of his or her conscience? We\u2019re not talking about classroom curriculum pertinent to the course\u2019s subject matter, either.<\/p>\n<p>Take the case of Vlaming v. West Point School Board, where high school French teacher Peter Vlaming is suing his West Point, Virginia school board for firing him. Why? Passionate about language and its precise meanings, Vlaming declined to refer to a female student with male pronouns. He would use the students\u2019 preferred name instead of the given name, but that wasn\u2019t enough. The foreign language teacher was compelled to use male pronouns \u2013 even when the student wasn\u2019t present \u2013 or else.<\/p>\n<p>Vlaming couldn\u2019t do it because doing so would strongly violate his conscience \u2013 so the district chose \u201cor else.\u201d He was \u201cplaced on leave and eventually terminated because of what he could not say. The school board demanded that Peter refer to a female student by male pronouns or face consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Consequently, Vlaming sued in court in September 2019 over compelled speech, which violates both state law and the First Amendment. Two years later, after the Circuit Court of the County of King William dismissed his case, he petitioned Virginia\u2019s Supreme Court to hear the case. The court agreed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeter could not in good conscience speak messages that he does not believe to be true,\u201d explain Vlaming\u2019s attorneys, who are with the organization Alliance Defending Freedom.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeter went above and beyond to treat this student with respect, including using the student\u2019s preferred name and avoiding pronoun usage in the student\u2019s presence,\u201d they add. \u201cThis was never about anything Peter said. It is about a school demanding total conformity in utter disregard of Peter\u2019s efforts and his freedoms under Virginia law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Vlaming\u2019s case, the fundamental issue is whether the government is permitted to compel individuals \u2013 whether they are employees of the government or otherwise \u2013 to speak ideas and use language contrary to their deeply held personal beliefs. In his classroom, the teacher was not expressing anything harmful. In fact, it wasn\u2019t anything he said that was at issue. It\u2019s what he didn\u2019t say \u2013 what he couldn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned before, Vlaming would respectfully address his student using the student\u2019s preferred name; he simply could not use preferred pronoun to represent the student\u2019s stated, alternate gender preference.<\/p>\n<p>Should a school district employee be forced to violate his conscience and his understanding of language simply to keep his or her job? No: As an agent of the state, a school cannot compel an employee\u2019s speech. Parents and teachers alike in Virginia and across the country ought to hope that the state\u2019s Supreme Court affirms Vlaming\u2019s rights in a case that promises to have lasting implications \u2013 implications that will likely send ripples across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Compelled speech is not the same thing as free speech. Furthermore, forcing someone to speak something often comes at the expense of one\u2019s conscience \u2013 a thought that ought to send shudders down anyone\u2019s spine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1549051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1549052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1549052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1549051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1549052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1549052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1549052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}