The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has ruled against a school district policy in Ohio that required students to use preferred pronouns, citing students’ free speech rights. The decision came after a group of parents challenged the policy.
Attorney General Alan Wilson of South Carolina co-led a coalition of 23 states in filing a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the challenge. The brief argued that requiring students to use certain pronouns forces them to express beliefs they may not hold.
“The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that teachers and students don’t ‘shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate,’ and yet this district in Ohio is trying to force all students to say things that many of them may not believe in,” Attorney General Wilson said. “I applaud this Court for upholding free speech rights.”
The coalition’s brief stated that some people believe gender identity can differ from biological sex, while others do not share this view and consider using pronouns inconsistent with someone’s sex as untruthful. The attorneys general wrote, “the First Amendment forbids school officials from coercing students to express messages inconsistent with the students’ values.”
South Carolina and Ohio led the effort, joined by Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.
