The Daily Signal - Can We Be Forced to Say Something We Don’t Believe? Ask Peter Vlaming.

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

A French teacher at West Point High School in West Point, Virginia, was fired for not using pronouns preferred by a transgender student. Should people be forced to contradict their core beliefs just to keep a job? Can you be compelled to speak a message you don't believe in? Caleb Dalton, a counsel with the Christian legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom who represents the teacher, Peter Vlaming, joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the issues involved. We also cover these stories: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before a House oversight committee on Monday.  Riots broke out in Wisconsin following the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by police on Sunday night.  Kellyanne Conway, a long-time adviser to President Donald Trump, is leaving the White House.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, August 25th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Del Judas. Peter Flaming was fired from his teaching position for accidentally calling a transgender student she. Caleb Dalton, legal counsel with the Christian Legal Organization Alliance Defending Freedom, who represents Flaming, joins me on the podcast to discuss Mr. Flaming's case from a legal standpoint. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now onto our top news. Postmaster General

Louis DeJoy testified before the House Oversight Committee on Monday. Lawmakers called on DeJoy and Postal Service Board of Governors Chairman Robert Duncan to testify amid claims that mail delivery has been intentionally slowed ahead of the November election. Democratic lawmakers exchanged heated words with DeJoy throughout the hearing. accusing him of intentionally sabotaging the Postal Service. DeJoy made clear in his remarks per CBS News that the USPS will be able to successfully deliver mail-in ballots this fall and refuted the claims of intentional sabotage. The Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's ballots securely and on time.

This sacred duty is my number one priority between now and election day. To be clear, we will do everything we can to handle and deliver election mail in a manner consistent with the proven processes and procedures that we have relied upon for years. Nevertheless, I encourage all Americans who choose to vote by mail to request their ballots early and to vote early as a common sense best practice. As part of this conversation, there are many inaccuracies about my actions that I wish to again, correct. First, I did not direct the removal of blue collection boxes or the removal of mail processing equipment. Second, I did not direct the cutback on hours at any of our post offices. And finally, I did not direct the elimination or any cutback in overtime. I did, however, suspend these practices to remove any misperceptions about our commitment to delivering the nation's

election mail. DeJoy added that he has made only two changes since his arrival in June. Changes he believes will better the Postal Service in the long term. On the day of my swearing in, the Postal Service Inspector General issued an astonishing report about the scheduled delays in Postal Service transportation and a substantial cost associated with our weaknesses in this fundamental operating principle. Upon review, I directed the Postal Service operations team. to develop and execute on a plan to improve our adherence to the transportation schedule

of our over 40,000 trips a day. We have accomplished this goal, as our on-time departures are approaching 98% and wasteful extra trips are down by over 70%. While we have had temporary service decline, which should not have happened, we are fixing this. In fact, last week, service improved to cost all major major main. and package categories, and I am laser focused on improving service for the American public. The second of two changes I made as Postmaster General is installing a new organizational reporting

structure to better align talent and resources, to instill greater accountability for performance, and to focus the organization on service and growth. These two changes, creating our new on-time transportation network and designing an engaged functional organizational structure will be the catalyst for significant improvements in cost, performance, and growth that I plan for this vital American institution. Riots have begun in Wisconsin following the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by police Sunday night. Police were reportedly responding to a domestic incident and shot Blake multiple times, USA Today reported. Blake has been hospitalized and is in serious condition per CBS News.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers commented on the situation on Twitter, saying, While we do not have all the details yet, what we do know for a certain is that he is not the first black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed at the hands of individuals in law enforcement in our state or our country, he said, adding. We stand with all those who have and continue to demand justice, equality, and accountability for black lives in our country. lives like those of George Floyd of Brianna Taylor, Tony Robinson, Dante Hamilton, Ernest Lacey, and Seville Smith. Kelly Ann Conway, a long-term advisor to President Trump, is leaving the White House. On Sunday, Conway released a statement saying she was leaving the White House of her own choice, writing, this is completely my choice and my voice. In time, I will announce future plans. for now and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama.

Conway, a mother of four children, explained she will be devoting more time to her children this fall, as they are going to be distance learning for at least the first two months of the school year. Conway's husband, George Conway, also announced his plans to leave the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, writing on Twitter, so I'm withdrawing from at Project Lincoln to devote more time to family matters, and I'll be taking a Twitter hiatus. Needless to say, I continue to support the Lincoln Project and its mission passionately. TikTok, a video social media platform, is suing the Trump administration after the Trump administration released an executive order banning the platform from the country. Earlier this month, the administration announced two executive orders addressing TikTok, making the company in China that owns TikTok,

bite dance, sell its American assets arguing that its ties to China pose a security threat, the Hill reported. In a statement announcing its intentions to sue, TikTok said, The administration ignored our extensive efforts to address its concerns, which we conducted fully and in good faith. We do not take suing the government lightly. However, we feel we have no choice but to take action to protect our rights and the rights of our community and employees.

in Hong Kong has been infected with COVID-19 for a second time, according to the University of Hong Kong. The case suggests that immunity from the virus may only be short-term for some people. The 33-year-old man was first infected in March, but made a full recovery by mid-April. He was retested in August after a trip to Spain, but this time he is completely asymptomatic, showing no signs of infection. Akeko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology at Yale University, tweeted that this is no cause for alarm. This is a textbook example of how immunity should work. A test comparing the virus's sequenced genomes the man was infected with in March versus the sequence genomes in August

revealed that the virus did mutate to a slightly different strain. Microbiologist Brendan Wren, a professor at the Lincoln School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, said in a statement that it is to be expected that the virus will naturally mutate over time. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Caleb Dalton on the case of Peter Vlamming, a French teacher who was fired for using the wrong pronoun. If you're tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger and bigger government, it's time to partner with the most impactful conservative organization in America. We're the Heritage Foundation, and we're committed to solving the issues

America faces. Together, we'll fight back against the rising tide of homegrown socialism, and we'll fight for conservative solutions that are making families more free and more prosperous. But we can't do it without you. Please join us at heritage.org. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Caleb, who serves as the U-Counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom. Caleb, it's great to have you on the Daily Signal podcast. Rachel, thanks so much for having me. It's great to have you with us. You represent Peter Vlaming, who's a French teacher who was fired for using the pronoun that was not preferred by a transgender student. And the daily signal for those who haven't seen it, we just released a mini documentary on Mr. Vlaming's

story, which will include in the show notes. But for those Caleb who are not familiar with Mr. Vleming's story, can you tell us about it? Sure. Peter Vlaming has been teaching French at West Point High School in Williamsburg, Virginia for over seven years. At least he had back in 2018 when this all started. And he had a student that he had already been teaching French for a while. And she came to him and expressed an interest in transitioning her identity to a male identity, even though she's a female student. And Peter met with her and her mom, asked what he could do just to make that transition

work in his classroom. And one of the things they requested was that she'd be able to pick a new name in French. as in French class, they all use French names in order part of kind of the cultural inculcation there of really absorbing the culture. So they all have French names. And what Peter first did was he just allowed the entire class to pick new French names so that the student wouldn't feel singled out as she was changing her name to more of a traditional male type name. But what Peter couldn't do was to call a girl. a boy using pronouns because those do identify a specific trait of maleness or femalness.

And that wasn't very difficult to do. It wasn't very difficult to accommodate because when you're talking with somebody in person, you don't actually use a third person pronoun. You don't say he or she when you're talking to somebody. You actually say you or use their name. So Peter used the student's name, her preferred name, and everything went fine. for several months until an incident in October kind of kicked off a series of events that led to his firing. Well, from a legal standpoint, Caleb, thanks for kind of bringing us through what happened in Mr. Fleming's classroom and in those days and weeks leading up to that situation.

But from a legal standpoint, can you kind of walk us through what Peter's case is? Absolutely. And I think to understand his case, you have to understand a little bit. bit more about what happened after that October incident. And what happened in that case is the student came to him and said, you know, I heard that you've been referring to me to other people that you've used the female pronoun. Now, Peter had been avoiding using the female pronoun when she was around just to try to respect her wishes and just using her name like we talked about. but so she said I heard that he they had a discussion about how you know he's trying to accommodate

her and everything turned out fine until the next day she was walking through a you know they were doing a virtual reality experiment actually so they were going through the french catacombs using virtual reality goggles and she had the goggles on she was walking down the hallway and was about to hit the wall and he called out don't let her hit the wall to the her part there who was supposed to be guiding her. And when he said her, he accidentally used the female pronoun. It was unintentional. And yet the student got really upset, went and complained about it.

He got called in and the principal and vice principal. And ultimately the superintendent and school board gave him an ultimatum. They said, you have to affirmatively use the male pronoun to refer to this student. you may not avoid using the male pronoun. You can't use her name instead or else she'll be fired. And Peter couldn't do that. He did. He went out of his way to accommodate this student, but the school board wouldn't give an inch

as far as any kind of accommodation for his beliefs or viewpoints or any kind of reasonable middle ground. And that ultimately led to his firing. Well, on that note, Caleb, did West Point High School administration, did they act inappropriately by firing Peter? Absolutely. They violated Peter's constitutional rights under a lot of people obviously familiar with the First Amendment, but state law also provides similar protections, the First Amendment, both free speech and free exercise, and there's other statutory protections in Virginia

that don't allow a school board to fire somebody simply because they can't violate their conscience in this manner. This is about way more than a pronoun. It's about what the pronoun actually means and to require Peter to actually say these words to use the male pronoun is to require him to affirm a belief in something that's not true and he simply cannot do that in good conscience. Reasonable accommodation would have been easy. It would have been to allow him to continue to use the student's name when she is around to avoid using the female pronoun just to avoid offending her. But to go further than that like the school board did to say affirmatively that you must use this pronoun or you will be fired.

The school board didn't care how well Peter treated the student. It was really on a crusade to compel conformity to their viewpoints. And that's wrong. Well, on that note, Caleb, of the pronouns, did this school even have a pronoun policy? They don't have a policy about pronouns. Obviously, they have a general policy about discrimination and harassment. And that's really what they accused him of, which is just, it's just completely ridiculous. I mean, Peter, in this case, went out of his way to treat this student as better than anybody could ask for.

He had the whole French class pick new names. He was using her preferred name. He went out of his way to accommodate her. There's no policy at the school that said you have to use whatever pronoun anybody tells you they want to be called by. It's simply something that they kind of made up and applied to him in a way that ultimately led to him losing his job simply because he couldn't violate his conscience. Well, CBS had reported that even though he wouldn't use the student's preferred pronouns, like you mentioned, Caleb, he would use the student's new name in French class that she had requested. Why don't you think that that was enough for the school?

It should have been, and that's what a reasonable accommodation would have been. You know, tolerance is a two-way street here, and Peter respected this student and her parents' rights to believe what they want to believe about her identity. All he was asking, is not to be compelled to express a belief in their own faith, and the student or the parent's faith about her identity. All he was asking is for the same respect in return, and the school board refused to give it. If we want freedom for ourselves, we have to be able to extend it to those that we disagree with. That's the core of the idea of free speech. Free speech wouldn't matter if we all agreed with everybody else's expression. It only comes into play when, you know, we disagree, even very strongly,

with something that somebody wants to say or something that maybe they're not saying. And that's when the protection of the First Amendment or the idea of free speech really comes into play. And the school board in this case simply refused to extend the same tolerance to Peter that he extended to the student in this case. Well, looking at past cases that the Supreme Court has heard, are there any similar cases, Caleb, that could be seen as similar to what Mr. Vlaming is going through, and how has the Supreme Court ruled on those? The Supreme Court has held fundamental to this idea that you can't compel somebody to speak a message that violates their conscience. A very interesting case that they decided back during World War II was a case of,

on behalf of some Jehovah's Witnesses students. And the school board there required students to say the pledges. of allegiance and to salute the flag. And that may seem very commonplace for many who grew up in that time. And especially during World War II, you know, during the height of patriotism, we were fighting the Nazis. People were not happy about that, that these students would say, no, we can't salute the flag or we can't say the pledge of allegiance because of our religious faith. And yet the Supreme Court held that no official can compel somebody to speak a message that violates their faith. And those were for students. And the same principle applies

to teachers. The school board can't require a teacher to stand up and affirm and recite a creed. And in the same way, they can't compel a teacher to express a belief in this ideology. It's completely unrelated to his class curriculum. This is an ideology regarding gender identity, and the school board has said, you have to affirm this ideology, or you'll be fired. There's no compromise, no middle ground, say these words or you'll be fired and that's what happened to Peter. Well, as you mentioned when we were talking that earlier in our conversation that Mr. Flaming never wanted to antagonize a student or, you know, embarrass or frustrate her in any way. That's why he chose to use the name that she had requested.

And we've both gotten to spend time with him on different occasions when I was getting ready to work on this documentary. I was able to spend some time with him. And I would like to talk about for a minute, just him as a person. I know in media sometimes people, and I know he has been framed in particular lights. And just from your experience, even working with Mr. Vlamming and hearing his story and representing him, I guess what has that been like or what are you able to share about the person and the teacher that you've observed that he is? You know, Peter is, he is such a loving man. He is dedicated his life to service when he was at the school. He not only was he the French teacher, he was also a bus driver.

He helped coach sports. He looked into helping start a wrestling team as a former wrestler, but he's also a former pastor. He's a deacon in his church. He helped start the current church that they attend. And he has a heart for people. He loves all his students. And he recognizes, though, that at school, as a teacher, his job is not to enforce his ideology on his students. and he didn't do that.

What happened to him here was he was simply asking for accommodation of his beliefs not to say these words. And the school refused to extend that same tolerance to him that he extended to his students. He cares about his students. In fact, the student in this case was, I think, kind of one of the class favorites, really good at French. Peter loved teaching her. And he respected her right, her parents' right, to believe

what they want to believe. And that's really all he was asking in return is that same right to believe what he does about gender identity and not to express that there's anything different than that. And everybody should be on board with that because public schools shouldn't be requiring teachers to abandon their beliefs that government in general should not be requiring any of us to speak words that violate our conscience. Well, Caleb, in your line of work in law, How often do you know or do you suspect this issue is how wide spread is it where teachers and even others in different professions have faced similar situations such as Mr. Fleming's? You know, it's difficult to quantify that just anecdotally. I know Peter's not the only one. There are other cases being litigated and we hear of other cases in the news. And you see jurisdictions like New York City who's passed very restrictive laws across the board that apply to pretty much all businesses, public accommodations there requiring them to use preferred pronouns with pretty heavy fines if you don't.

So this is certainly an issue that's emerging within our society. And it's one that's difficult for a lot of people because we're a compassionate society and we feel for those who are hurting. But at some point we have to draw a line and say, even in that compassion, we are not going to compel a teacher or another employee. The government can't come in and say, look, you have to affirm this ideology or you are not worthy of a place in our society. Peter, that was his career. He has kids that he's trying to feed, and he now can't get a job in public education because of what they did to him. He went out of his way to accommodate this student, and they did not extend him one inch of accommodation for his beliefs. This isn't a type of society.

It's not a tolerant society that ruins a man's career when he is simply trying to abide by his conscience like this. Caleb, you mentioned Peter's inability to teach right now, and I've gotten countless emails and even comments on the mini documentary that went up. People asking, what is Peter doing now? Is he teaching? Can he teach again? Does he have employment? So are you able to share anything about that, what he is doing and if there is potentially a path to teach down the road?

You know, he has applied for other public school positions, and he's been turned down every time so far. He has gotten a job in another field just in order to provide for his family. And frankly, that's been rather difficult for him after being fired like this. So he is, you know, able to put food on the table right now, but he would love to be able to teach. It's as part of his passion. It's who he is. He's a great teacher.

You know, I love some of the pictures that you showed in the documentary showing how he really engages his students, you know, whether it's helping them cook up French cuisine or the immersive experience of the VR goggles of exploring the French catacombs and really immersing themselves in the cold. of the French people, not just learning the rote, you know, issues of the French language. So he's a great teacher. He would love to be doing that again. And we hope as a result of this case that he will be able to in the future. Well, as we look down the road into other fields that people are in doctors, nurses, teachers like Peter Vlamming and so many others, what kind of implications do similar scenarios have for professionals in all these different fields?

and could this be something that we see more of and more of and more of? You know, I don't think it will be limited to the school context. It has come up several times in the school context already, but I think we'll see this issue popping up more and more as this ideology kind of spreads and as people work out in their own minds how we are to deal with this issue. And I think the bottom line for people of all faiths, of all beliefs, or of no faith should be,

that freedom wins in the end because freedom of speech, if it means anything, it means the freedom not to speak messages that violate our core beliefs. And whether you agree with what Peter did or not, what you should agree with is that the government shouldn't be able to tell you the words that you have to speak, especially when they're ideologically charged as they were in this particular situation. We should be able to come to reasonable accommodations on both sides and show that tolerance truly is a two-way street, not a one-way ratchet like the school board tried to make it in this case. Well, Caleb, thank you so much for joining us on the Daily Signal podcast and sharing about a peer of lightning's case. It's been great to have you with us. Rachel, thanks so much for

having me. And that will do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And please do, be sure to leave a review and a five-star rating on Apple. podcast and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.