A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a lower court’s ruling that it was lawful for a school district in Indiana to fire a music teacher who refused to call students by their preferred gender pronouns and names.
John Kluge, a former music theory and orchestra teacher at Brownsburg High School, was ordered in 2017 to use students’ names and pronouns based on their new gender identity registered in the school’s database. Citing his Christian beliefs, Kluge requested a religious accommodation by referring to all students only by their surnames, to which the school district officials initially agreed.
