On Friday, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Professor Nicholas Meriwether can continue his lawsuit against his employer, Shawnee State University, reversing a dismissal order and sending the case back to the lower court for further proceedings.

Read WoLF’s post on background on this case as well as our amicus brief here.

Shawnee State argued that it could prohibit Meriwether from using sex-based pronouns under the principle that a government employee does not generally enjoy unfettered free speech rights when carrying out their official duties. However, the 6th Circuit rejected the university’s argument, calling it “totally unpersuasive,” instead ruling that academic freedom is a “transcendent value” not only for educators, but for their students and for greater society. It cited the 1967 Supreme Court case Keyishian v. Bd. of Regents which famously said that the First Amendment “does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.” Further, it concluded:

“If professors lacked free-speech protections when teaching, a university would wield alarming power to compel ideological conformity. A university president could require a pacifist to declare that war is just, a civil rights icon to condemn the Freedom Riders, a believer to deny the existence of God, or a Soviet émigré to address his students as “comrades.” That cannot be. “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe” such orthodoxy. Barnette, 319 U.S. at 642.” [emphasis added]

Professor Meriwether also made claims on religious freedom grounds—The court found these claims meritorious enough to survive a motion to dismiss. However, we must take notice of exactly what Meriwether stated his religious beliefs to be: that “sex is fixed in each person from the moment of conception, and that it cannot be changed, regardless of an individual’s feelings or desires.”  Labelling a verifiable fact of human reproduction as a religious belief is very telling, and demonstrates the importance of this case succeeding on free speech grounds. The public cannot count on the judiciary to accurately identify gender ideology as a belief system—we are living within a topsy turvy world in which biology is a belief and a gendered ‘inner soul’ is considered a fact. Meriwether should not have to specifically cite his Christianity in order to object to this ideology; our constitution gives us the right to simply not believe in it, regardless of the reason or its prevalence.

In a press release from Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Meriwether, counsel John Bursch said “[t]his case forced us to defend what used to be a common belief - that nobody should be forced to contradict their core beliefs just to keep their job.”  In fact, recent polling of likely voters in New York, South Dakota, and West Virginia has shown that the vast majority of Americans believe that people should not lose their jobs for expressing deeply held beliefs.

While pluralism and tolerance continue to lose out to ideological conformity and illiberalism, the courts remain our best hope for free speech protection. The Meriwether case gets at the core of these issues.  When can the government—in this case, the administration of a public university—take away our ability to freely speak the truth?  

Professor Meriwether refused to use “preferred pronouns.” Instead, he offered to address the student by name only, without honorifics. He offered to use female pronouns for the male student as long as he could put a disclaimer in his syllabus that it was against his religion. Yet, he was told no—his choice was to not use any pronouns for any student (which the 6th Circuit recognized as logistically impossible), or use the ones he was told to use, even if it contradicted what he believed and what he knew to be true.

As we have written before, compelled speech by the government is unconstitutional. In recent years, our right to freedom of speech has been increasingly infringed upon in service to gender ideology. Rulings like this one are important tools for us to assert our rights, and crucial to protect the integrity of our educational system. As noted at the start of the decision:

“Traditionally, American universities have been beacons of intellectual diversity and academic freedom. They have prided themselves on being forums where controversial ideas are discussed and debated. And they have tried not to stifle debate by picking sides. But Shawnee State chose a different route: It punished a professor for his speech on a hotly contested issue. And it did so despite the constitutional protections afforded by the First Amendment. The district court dismissed the professor’s free-speech and free-exercise claims. We see things differently and reverse.” p.1

This decision is an unambiguous defense of free speech, and the U.S. has not had much of that lately. For those so inclined, the decision is worth reading in its entirety.