The long-running case involving a teacher’s refusal to call students by their preferred names and pronouns, Kluge v. Brownsburg Comm. Sch. Dist. Corp., has taken yet another turn. We have reported on earlier decisions in this case, so the facts are outlined only briefly.
A public school district in Indiana adopted a policy that, among other things, required employees to refer to students by their preferred names and pronouns once those names had been input into their student information system. One teacher objected on religious grounds and initially was permitted to refer to students by their last names only, thus sidestepping the issue of changes in first names and pronouns. However, after receiving complaints from students, parents, and staff that the provided accommodation was harming transgender students and affecting the learning environment of other students and staff, the school informed the teacher that he would be required to refer to students by their preferred names and pronouns. The teacher then resigned and sued the school district.
Initially, the school district prevailed at both the district court and before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (which also has jurisdiction over Illinois). Shortly after the Seventh Circuit’s initial decision (Kluge I), the U.S. Supreme Court decided a religious accommodations case involving a postal worker in Groff v. DeJoy. The Supreme Court in Groff changed the threshold for “undue hardship” in religious accommodations cases, making it easier for employees to assert religious accommodations requests and harder for employers to prove that an accommodation is an undue hardship. The Groff ruling prompted the Seventh Circuit to vacate its decision in Kluge I and send the case back to the district court to reconsider under the Groff standard.
In the second go-round, the district court still ruled in favor of the school district, granting summary judgment. The teacher appealed to the Seventh Circuit again. On appeal, the school district asserted that the last-name-only practice imposed an undue hardship because it (1) caused student harm and disrupted the learning environment and (2) exposed the district to an unreasonable risk of Title IX liability (for possible discrimination of transgender students). To the contrary, the teacher argued (1) that complaints by a handful of students and teachers are insufficient to demonstrate an undue hardship on the District’s mission and (2) any increased Title IX liability was at most speculative because the last-names-only practice “treated everyone the same.”
A divided panel of the Seventh Circuit in Kluge II agreed with the teacher, at least in part. First, the majority noted that even if the emotional distress of a few students qualifies as an undue hardship (the majority did not conclude that it did), whether the last-names-only accommodation rose to the level of an undue hardship was unclear. Second, the majority found that school failed to show the last-names-only policy resulted in emotional distress under an objective standard (which is required in Title VII harassment cases) and that material factual disputes regarding whether the accommodation disrupted the school’s learning environment further precluded summary judgment.
Finally, the majority sided with the teacher on the Title IX issue, holding that, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the teacher (as was required at that stage in the litigation), they could not conclude that his last-names-only accommodation treated transgender students worse than their classmates.
We will continue to monitor this case as it makes it way back to the district court for further discovery and/or a possible jury trial.
In the meantime, for questions about employees’ use of students’ preferred names and pronouns or questions about employees’ religious accommodations in general, contact any member of our Labor/Personnel practice group
