02 U.S. Politics

[UPDATE] An Indiana school district has agreed to pay $650,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a Christian music teacher who said he was forced out of his job after refusing to use the preferred names and pronouns of students, according to his attorneys.

John Kluge sued Brownsburg Community School Corp. in 2019 after leaving his position at Brownsburg High School, arguing that the district failed to accommodate his Christian beliefs.

Kluge’s attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) said the district has now agreed to the payment after the case was revived following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that strengthened protections for religious accommodations in the workplace.

Under the settlement, the district will also “train its senior staff on how Title VII protects religious employees against discrimination,” Kluge’s lawyers said. The legal group did not publicly file the settlement agreement, submitting only a joint stipulation of dismissal.

“After almost five and a half years, common sense has prevailed at Brownsburg,” said David Cortman, senior counsel and vice president of U.S. litigation for ADF.  “This settlement confirms what the law has always said: Public schools cannot force teachers to violate their religious beliefs. Title VII requires employers to accommodate their employees’ religious beliefs and practices. When they fail to do so—or worse, announce that they will grant no religious accommodations, as Brownsburg did—they can be held accountable. We hope this settlement shows teachers that they do not have to bow the knee to ideological mandates that violate their religious beliefs. And schools should learn that refusing to accommodate religious employees can be illegal and expensive.”