A Wisconsin school district on Friday agreed to pay out $20,000 to a teacher who was terminated for refusing to use preferred names and pronouns for transgender students.
Jordan Cernek, an English teacher, sued the Argyle School District in July 2024 after his contract was not renewed, alleging the district violated his right to free exercise of his religion and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Mr. Cernek has a sincerely held religious belief that God makes no mistakes when it comes to sex and gender and that calling a transgender student by a name or pronouns at odds with their biological sex would cause Mr. Cernek to affirm that God made a mistake in creating a transgender person as a male or a female,” the lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty stated. “In Mr. Cernek’s religious view, affirming a transgender person’s identity through the use of preferred names and pronouns would be speaking a falsehood and violate his religious beliefs.”
While the district initially offered Cernek a religious accommodation exempting from the requirement to use students’ preferred name and pronouns, administrators later required him to adhere to the name policy, according to court records.