(LifeSiteNews) — Two former Oregon educators reached a $650,000 settlement with the Grants Pass School District 7 (GPSD) after it fired them for taking a stand against the district’s transgender policies.
In 2021, former assistant principal Rachel Sager and health and science teacher Katie Medart founded I Resolve, a grassroots movement that advocates a series of policies to treat gender-confused students with compassion while not infringing on the safety, privacy, or consciences of everyone else. Its framework was proposed as an alternative to policies like GPSD’s “Gender Identity, Transgender, Name, and Pronoun Guidance,” which requires access to intimate spaces be based on “preferred gender identity.”
GPSD suspended and later fired them that year. They sued on free speech, religious liberty, and equal protection grounds, and their claims were initially rejected by lower courts. But in June, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the dismissal, remanding the matter for trial.
On November 14, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) announced that GPSD reached a settlement with the educators, agreeing to pay them $650,000 in damages and legal fees, publicly admit to wrongful termination, amend their personnel files, write them positive letters of recommendation, and revise its policies to better respect educators’ First Amendment rights.
“Educators are free to express opinions on fundamental issues of public concern – like gender identity education policy – that implicate the freedoms of teachers, parents, and students,” ADF attorney Mathew Hoffmann said. “The Grants Pass School District is taking the right step by acknowledging that teachers don’t give up their First Amendment rights when they set foot on school property. Public schools can’t retaliate against speech simply because they disagree with what’s said.”
The indoctrination of children with left-wing ideology on sexuality, race, and other agenda items has long been a major concern in American public schools from libraries to drag events to classroom materials to even “transitioning” troubled children without parental input. Many schools have also displayed hostility to the rights and employment of individual teachers who refuse to go along with such agendas.
The Trump administration has taken steps to depoliticize public education, including by ordering the elimination of federal funds to schools that continue diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and by reversing the Biden administration’s infusion of gender ideology into Title IX rules.
