A Riverside County faculty district has agreed to pay $360,000 to settle a lawsuit from a former trainer who was fired final 12 months after refusing to stick to insurance policies concerning transgender or gender-nonconforming college students, citing her Christian beliefs.
Jessica Tapia, who taught bodily training at Jurupa Valley Excessive Faculty, claimed in her wrongful termination lawsuit that her free speech and spiritual rights had been violated. She had refused — hypothetically, in statements to district personnel — to make use of college students’ most popular pronouns, to permit them to make use of the locker room matching their gender identification, or to “withhold info” from dad and mom about their baby’s gender identification, in accordance with the federal lawsuit.
The Jurupa Unified Faculty District didn’t admit any wrongdoing, however agreed to pay Tapia $285,000, in addition to $75,000 for her attorneys’ charges, in accordance with the settlement settlement signed Tuesday. Tapia additionally agreed to not search future employment with the district, and either side agreed to not disparage one another or file future lawsuits.
Julianne Fleischer, considered one of Tapia’s attorneys, referred to as the settlement an “unbelievable victory.”
“Her spiritual beliefs weren’t accommodated once they might have been,” mentioned Fleischer, authorized counsel for Advocates for Religion & Freedom, a Murrieta-based nonprofit spiritual liberties group. “We expect it sends a robust message that there’s a value to pay whenever you ask a trainer to lie and withhold info.”
Jacquie Paul, a Jurupa Unified spokesperson, mentioned the settlement was a “compromise of a disputed declare.”
“The choice to settle this case was made … in the very best curiosity of the scholars, such that the district can proceed to dedicate all of its sources and efforts to teach and help its pupil inhabitants no matter their protected class,” Paul mentioned in a press release.
The case is only one of a number of lawsuits difficult how the rights of transgender college students, their dad and mom and lecturers must be balanced — disputes which have shaped the spine of California’s training tradition wars.
Beneath California’s anti-discrimination legal guidelines, federal and state legal guidelines, a transgender or gender-nonconforming pupil’s identification shouldn’t be shared, together with with their dad and mom, with out the scholar’s permission, in accordance with the California Division of Schooling.
However in Tapia’s case, her attorneys argued there was by no means an occasion when she didn’t abide by faculty and state insurance policies, as a result of it by no means got here up in her tenure.
As an alternative, her termination stemmed from a number of of her social media posts, which college students discovered offensive and reported for his or her content material about transgender folks and faith. When faculty officers requested her to curb her social media exercise and conform to observe sure district insurance policies concerning transgender college students’ privateness and rights, she refused, citing her Christian beliefs.
Tapia requested a spiritual lodging, saying the district’s insurance policies went in opposition to her beliefs “concerning human sexuality and mendacity,” in accordance with her lawsuit.
Fleischer mentioned her group has respect for the transgender group, however this case affirms that “spiritual rights are usually not second class.”
Paul mentioned the district will “proceed to observe all native, state and federal legal guidelines, together with legal guidelines in opposition to harassment and discrimination to guard its college students and workers.”
Tapia was employed by the district in 2014, first as an alternative and later full time, and taught each center faculty and highschool bodily training. She was fired in January 2023, in accordance with the lawsuit.
Tapia publicly supported a invoice final 12 months that will have required lecturers to reveal to oldsters if their baby was gender-nonconforming or transgender. That invoice has since died in committee.
She is now serving to lead Advocates for Religion & Freedom’s new marketing campaign referred to as “Lecturers Don’t Lie,” to help different educators who really feel their religion is being compromised by faculty insurance policies.
