Chief United States District Judge Mark E. Walker, an Obama appointee, wrote that Wood is “substantially likely” to succeed on her First Amendment claims, and issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state from enforcing the law against her, pending her lawsuit. The injunction applies only to Wood, and not statewide.
"So, the question before this Court is whether the First Amendment permits the State to dictate, without limitation, how public-school teachers refer to themselves when communicating to students. The answer is a thunderous ‘no.'”
Walker’s ruling cites a 2022
decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of a public school football coach, Joe Kennedy, who lost his job for praying on the football field.
How this teacher would refer to themself?
Does this school teach grammar? If so...I would say they have a compelling interest in requiring the teacher to use "I/me" otherwise it could get extremely confusing and detrimental to the educational outcomes of the children.
We still want the biology teacher to teach that mammals are male and female and no third option exists (despite genetic abnormalities) because of evolution....and that's regardless of whether or not they are Christian or one of these "gender ideology" cultists. Education should be on the facts.
If the teacher wants to refer to itself as something grammatically incorrect then the teacher is essentially undoing the efforts of the English teacher. I'd argue that's against the interests of the students just as if the math teacher started spouting "creationism" or "intelligent design" during his class...
We can agree that the teachers should be teaching the facts, can't we? Not their personal worldviews or politics....
I'm not sure how the coach prayer case is even relevant here....that's clearly not a classroom setting and unless he required players to pray. Outside of the classroom setting (where teachers are supposed to do their jobs) in places like the teacher's lounge...I don't care what the teacher calls themselves.
Can anybody explain this in a way that doesn't make it sound like the teacher wants to impose "preferred pronouns" or their goofy gender ideology onto the classroom?
If a student asks this teacher what they did over the weekend and this teacher went to the fair and rode a roller-coaster...how does this teacher want to answer that question?
"I went to the fair and rode the roller-coaster."?
Or...
"Zi went to the fair and rode a roller-coaster."?
Or...
"She went to the fair and rode the roller-coaster."?
Or...
"They went to the fair and rode the roller-coaster."?
Or....
"Kitten went to the fair and rode the roller-coaster all by kittenself."? Before licking the backs of kittenself's paws (hands) and dropping a loaf in the sandbox under the desk.
The first option is the only one that makes sense and regardless of whatever their preferred pronouns are...shouldn't be a problem for the teacher or anyone else.
The second seems like a fake accent or possibly a speech impediment.
The next two make no sense grammatically.
The last seems to require significant mental healthcare and should probably be an impediment for being allowed to teach. They need to seek help, not teach children about reality.
