School district pays $650,000 to Christian teacher fired for refusing preferred pronouns: lawyers

An Indiana school district paid a Christian music teacher $650,000 to resolve his 2019 lawsuit challenging his firing for refusing to use gender-confused students' preferred names and pronouns, according to his lawyers.

A Supreme Court precedent three years ago on religious accommodations for employees prompted a chastened appeals court to reinstate and remand John Kluge's case for a jury trial, at which point Brownsburg Community School Corp. sought to settle.

In addition to the payment, the district will "train its senior staff on how Title VII protects religious employees against discrimination," Kluge's lawyers at the Alliance Defending Freedom said. 

ADF didn't file the settlement terms, just the joint stipulation of dismissal, telling Just the News it couldn't share the settlement agreement. The Indianapolis Star also reported the alleged terms of settlement without attributing them to ADF.

"This settlement confirms what the law has always said: Public schools cannot force teachers to … bow the knee to ideological mandates that violate their religious beliefs," ADF Vice President of U.S. Litigation David Cortman said. "And schools should learn that refusing to accommodate religious employees can be illegal and expensive."

The district emphasized it had "prevailed on the majority of Mr. Kluge’s legal claims" when it settled, securing favorable rulings from "multiple federal judges" before the new SCOTUS precedent revived Kluge's Title VII claim for trial this spring. 

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had even claimed the district had a "legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason" for firing Kluge, causing "emotional harm" and disrupting the learning environment, before SCOTUS ruled for Christian postal worker Gerald Groff, requiring employers to show "substantial increased costs" if they were to grant religious accommodations such as Sundays off work.

"After careful and extended deliberation, it was deemed to be in the best interest of Brownsburg Schools’ financial situation to settle this case," the district told WRTV.

"We continue to believe that Mr. Kluge’s free speech rights and his rights to freely exercise his religion were not infringed at Brownsburg Schools," the full statement reads. "The school corporation has not wavered in its belief that Mr. Kluge’s decision to resign came after the school corporation followed its policy and applicable federal laws and acted in the best interest of its students."