An Indiana school district will pay $195,000 in a settlement with a school counselor who was fired for confirming the implementation of a new school “gender support” policy to a journalist.
Kathy McCord worked as a school counselor and teacher for nearly 40 years. And since 1998, she has worked as a school counselor at Pendleton Heights High School, a Pendleton, Indiana, school in the South Madison Community School Corporation school district.
In September 2021, South Madison established a “Gender Support Plan” for high school counselors and administrators. The district announced the directive in a required training course about gender and sexuality. Under the plan, employees are required to aid a child in their social transition by using cross-gender names and pronouns. Such usage does not require parental notification, and in certain cases, school staff must hide such transitions from parents and guardians. Under the plan, refraining from socially transitioning a student or expressing “any religious objection or personal beliefs about transgender students” constitutes discrimination.
McCord, a Christian who believes God purposefully designed each person as male or female, expressed her concerns to her supervisors, who informed her that in order to keep her job, she must put aside her religious beliefs and adhere to the order.
But when a community member informed a journalist of the new policy, which was not made public, the journalist began investigating the school policy, eventually approaching McCord about whether the information he had compiled about the policy was true. McCord verified the veracity of the journalist’s findings. When asked by the journalist to confirm whether the district was “keeping parents in the dark,” McCord acknowledged that the district was not being transparent with parents about its “gender support” policy, a press release from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) states.
The journalist wrote and published an article criticizing the school district and its policy before writing more articles further critiquing the district. During a school board meeting three days after the initial article, parents and community members voiced overwhelming opposition to the policy.
The school then fired McCord.
In response, McCord sued the district, backed by ADF. The May 2023 suit was settled this month, with McCord being awarded $195,000 in damages, attorneys’ fees and court costs.
“No American should be fired for expressing her beliefs, especially not an educator speaking in her personal capacity, on her own time, and out of concern for her students,” said ADF Senior Counsel Vincent Wagner. “Kathy knows that kids do best when schools and parents work together. But South Madison left parents in the dark. It’s regrettable that South Madison made Kathy endure three years of litigation to get to this point, but we are pleased with this result for Kathy.”
