West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey is leading a coalition of 12 states to defend a Maryland teacher who was told she had to become a mouthpiece for gender ideology policies or lose her job.
Montgomery County Public Schools (MPCS) has guidelines requiring staff to address elementary school children using pronouns that contradict their biological sex. Staff must also keep parents in the dark if the child is secretly “transitioning” at school. Teacher Kimberly Polk sought a religious accommodation because the guidelines go against her Christian beliefs. She asked to be assigned to a classroom where no student was undergoing gender transition – which would have left the guidelines intact -- but the district refused and she was barred from substitute teaching.
The coalition filed the amicus brief in Kimberly Ann Polk v. Montgomery County Public Schools, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case after the Fourth Circuit rejected Ms. Polk’s claims that she was exercising free speech. The amicus argues the MPCS guidelines raise every First Amendment red flag. They compel speech, silence speech, pick a favored viewpoint in the gender identity debate, and pressure Ms. Polk to abandon her religious views.
"No teacher should have to choose between their faith and their job," Attorney General McCuskey said. "We're asking the Supreme Court to take this case and make clear the Constitution doesn't allow school districts to force educators to say things that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
West Virginia was joined on the amicus brief by Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas.
Read a copy of the brief here.
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