A federal appeals court sided this month with Oregon officials who fired a public school counselor for refusing to remove a display with books affirming biological sex and gender.
According to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Oregon’s InterMountain Education Service District (IMESD) did not violate the First Amendment rights of Roderick E. Theis II when it fired him for standing up for traditional, Biblical values.
Theis, an education specialist who was employed at Oregon’s IMESD for more than 15 years, was told he could not display gender-themed books titled “He is He” and “She is She,” or the children’s book Johnny the Walrus, all of which he had displayed in two offices on separate campuses. The court said Johnny the Walrus, written by conservative commentator and author Matt Walsh, “allegorically comments on transgender issues.” IMESD said that if Theis did not remove the books from his offices, he could face termination.
Theis is a Christian who “bases his beliefs on the Bible and strives to live out his Christian faith at work and in the community,” according to his complaint.
Backed by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Theis filed suit for a protective order that would enable him to continue displaying the books. A district judge ruled that the district could bar the book display only when students were visiting Theis’ office. The district investigated Theis and later terminated him after discovering that he had shared the books with middle school students on other occasions when they asked to see them.
Theis said he believed the book ban applied only when meeting with students officially and not when he met with them outside of official sessions.
A lower court later upheld Theis’ termination, and the appellate court upheld that ruling. The court’s majority opinion argued that educators’ speech is government speech when educators interact with their students during the school day.
In the majority ruling, Circuit Judge John B. Owens wrote that Theis was “assigned to work in school offices, meet with students, and carry out his duties” as “a government employee.”
“His speech occurred in the course of those responsibilities and cannot be meaningfully separated from them,” Owens wrote. “As such, Theis’s speech falls outside the First Amendment’s ambit.”
Mathew Hoffman, legal counsel at ADF, told Fox News Digital that the organization “will continue to defend Rod’s First Amendment freedom to express his views like other employees.”
“The government can’t silence a speaker just because it disapproves of what he says, yet InterMountain fired Rod Theis after a single person objected to his views,” Hoffman said.
In his dissent, Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke argued that any expressions made by public school employees that students can observe would be considered government speech, according to the ruling’s interpretation.
Yet, he cited the display of Pride flags and Black Lives Matter posters in college offices, as well as and other political posters and displays, as personal decorative items.
VanDyke warned that the ruling grants public schools sweeping authority to censor school staff’s personal expression on controversial topics.
