A Virginia educator who lost his job for declining to use a student’s chosen pronouns has been awarded $575,000 following a lawsuit against the school district he worked for, court documents and legal representatives reveal.

Peter Vlaming, a high school French teacher in West Point for roughly seven years, initiated a $1 million lawsuit against the West Point School Board in 2019 after he was terminated, according to court filings.

According to his lawsuit presented in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Vlaming refrained from using he/him pronouns for a student who had transitioned and opted instead to use the student’s preferred name.

School administrators instructed him to stop avoiding the preferred pronouns and to utilize he/him pronouns for the transitioning student, as per earlier local media reports and information from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal non-profit organization.

School board agrees to compensatory payment; superintendent comments

Caleb Dalton, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, announced that the West Point School Board agreed to compensate Vlaming with $575,000 for damages and legal fees, with a judge approving the settlement on Monday.

Superintendent Larry L. Frazier Jr. of West Point Public Schools remarked in a statement to YSL News that the agreement reached was satisfactory, ensuring “no negative consequences for the students, staff, or community of West Point.”

The school district has also implemented transgender policies following guidelines from Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, as reported by the Washington Post.

These guidelines, issued in 2022 by the Republican governor, rolled back certain transgender protections and empowered parents to decide on their child’s preferred identity and name in school records, YSL News previously noted.

In his statement, Frazier emphasized, “This is an essential part of our 2023-2028 Strategic Plan. One goal specifically aims at ‘Student & Staff Wellbeing’: to cultivate an environment of safety, security, and overall wellness for students, staff, families, and the West Point community.”

Dalton characterized the settlement as “a victory for freedom of speech in Virginia,” asserting that public educators “should not compel teachers to support beliefs they fundamentally oppose.”

“No government should mandate its employees, or anyone else, to declare loyalty to an ideology that contradicts their core values,” Dalton asserted.

YSL News has contacted the attorneys for the school board regarding this case.

Dalton indicated that West Point also expunged Vlaming’s termination from his record.

Currently, Vlaming is employed by a French publishing company, as his attorney stated on Thursday.