University to pay $400K to professor who declined to address male student with female pronouns

 By Heather Clark - Posted at Christian News Network:

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — A university in Ohio has agreed to pay $400,000 in damages and attorney’s fees to a professor who was punished for declining to refer to a male student with feminine pronouns.

Shawnee State University officials agreed to the settlement in light of last year’s ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that the professor had a right to sue for infringement of his free speech and free exercise of religion rights under the First Amendment.

“Meriwether respectfully sought an accommodation that would both protect his religious beliefs and make Doe feel comfortable. In response, the university derided him and equated his good-faith convictions with racism. An inference of religious hostility is plausible in these circumstances,” wrote Judge Amul Thapar, nominated to the bench by then-President Donald Trump.

“The effect of this … is that Meriwether must adhere to the university’s orthodoxy (or face punishment). This is coercion, at the very least of the indirect sort. And we know the Free Exercise Clause protects against both direct and indirect coercion,” he said on behalf of the three-judge panel.

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