A teacher in Virginia who was fired for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns said that he has since been “blasklisted” from teaching in the state.
Peter Vlaming was a high school French teacher at a public school in Virginia’s West Point school district when he was terminated from his position in 2018 for refusing to use pronouns that contradicted a student’s biological sex, arguing that doing so would violate his religious beliefs.
Speaking to Fox News, Vlaming said he was “blacklisted,” and unable to get another job teaching in Virginia after being voted out by the West Point School Board.
“Sometimes it costs something to speak the truth, to not lie. Sometimes it costs something to do what is right,” Vlaming said. “We’ve come to a point where your job may be in the balance, but if people don’t take a stand, then we’re basically going more and more toward a totalitarian system where things that have nothing to do with the curriculum [that is] being required.”
Caleb Dalton, legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, who is representing Vlaming in the case, told Fox News that teachers should not have to choose between betraying their beliefs or being fired.
“No government should be able to force an employee on pain of firing, to lie and to violate their conscience,” Dalton said. “We’re thankful that the Virginia Constitution protects his rights, and we’re hopeful the Virginia Supreme Court affirms those.”
Vlaming noted that since his case became public, teachers across the country have reached out to him and shared similar situations in their districts.
“Teachers are being required to parrot beliefs that are – I would say, false on their face – but that many teachers don’t hold,” said Vlaming.
Radical leftists all over the world continue to shove their woke ideologies into schools. Similarly, in Ireland, a teacher was put behind bars for refusing to use his student’s preferred pronouns.
Enoch Burke, who teaches history, politics, and German at Wilson’s Hospital School, was arrested earlier this month after he violated a court order prohibiting him from teaching classes or even being present on the school’s campus in Westmeath.
Burke reportedly refused to refer to a student who was transitioning from being male to identifying as female as “they” instead of “he,” prompting school officials to place him on paid administrative leave until a disciplinary process is completed.
He was later locked behind bars after he refused to stay away from his classroom in protest. Burke, who has no criminal record, has since been moved into the general prison population with other nonviolent offenders.
