The Daily Signal - Top 5 of 2020 Day 1: During this Christmas season, we're sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year to allow our team to take time off for the holidays. (Repeat)

Episode Date: December 29, 2020

Top 5 of 2020 Day 2: During this Christmas season, we're sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year to allow our team to take time off for the holidays. 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. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to day two of the Daily Signals top five of 2020. Today is Tuesday, December 29th. I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Virginia Allen. We are so excited to continue sharing the Daily Signal's top five podcast episodes of 2020 with you. Can we be forced to say something we don't believe? That is the question teacher Peter Flaming was faced with when a biological female student of his requested to be called a man. Caleb Dalton, legal counsel with a Christian legal organization.

Alliance Defending Freedom, who represents Peter Flaming, joins the Daily Signal podcast to discuss. And if you haven't done so already, please do be sure to leave us a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. It would be a great gift to us this Christmas season. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Caleb Dalton, who serves as Lou Counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom. Caleb, it's great to have you on the Daily Signal podcast. Rachel, thanks so much for having me. Well, 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. to pick a new name in French. 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 femaleness. 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. I think to understand his case, you have to understand a little 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. 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. was about to hit the wall, and he called out, don't let her hit the wall to her partner 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 are 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 a 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, 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 Pledge 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 embarrassed 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. Vlaming 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. He looked. He looked at 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, 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 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. Flaming'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 within 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 has, 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 him cook up French cuisine or the immersive experience of the VR goggles of exploring the French catacombs and really immersing themselves in the culture of the French people, not just learning the, 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'll do it for today's episode.

Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. You can find The Daily Signal podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeart Radio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow for more of the Daily Signals top five of 2020. 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

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