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CINCINNATI — One Ohio university demanded a Christian professor no longer use pronouns when he addresses his students in class. But after a legal challenge by the philosophy professor, the publicly-funded school ended up not having the last word after all.
In a major victory for free speech and religious freedom, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in favor of a Shawnee State University Professor disciplined because he declined a male student’s demand to be referred to as a woman with feminine pronouns. Although Philosophy Professor Dr. Nicholas Meriwether offered to use any name the student requested, the University rejected the compromise, choosing instead to force the professor to speak and act contrary to his own Christian convictions and philosophical beliefs.
“It is important to remember public universities should be a marketplace of ideas, not merely an assembly line of one type of thought,” says Professor Dr. Nicholas Meriwether. “I do not think universities should be in the business of requiring people to express or endorse a particular ideologies they do not hold.”
Dr. Meriwether has served as a philosophy professor at Shawnee State University for over twenty years with an unblemished record. He is serious about creating an atmosphere of mutual respect in his classroom. As a philosopher and as a Christian, Dr. Meriwether believes God created human beings as either male or female, and that a person’s sex cannot change. To call a man a woman or vice versa endorses an ideology that conflicts with his beliefs.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), one of the world’s largest and most successful religious freedom law firms, represented Professor Meriwether in his case.
According to the three-judge panel, “If professors lacked free-speech protections when teaching, a university would wield alarming power to compel ideological conformity, A university president could require a pacifist to declare that war is just, a civil rights icon to condemn the Freedom Riders, a believer to deny the existence of God, or a Soviet émigré to address his students as ‘comrades.’ That cannot be. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe such orthodoxy.”
“It is important to remember public universities should be a marketplace of ideas, not merely an assembly line of one type of thought. I do not think universities should be in the business of requiring people to express or endorse particular ideologies they do not hold….tolerance is a two-way street.”
Professor Dr. Nicholas Meriwether
This case sets an important standard for free speech and academic freedom in Ohio. One public policy analyst expressed his approval of the decision.
“Shawnee State, a university funded by Ohio taxpayers, not only violated the First Amendment, but violated the fundamental ideals of academic freedom. Universities should be a place of robust debate, yet Shawnee State decided to punish a state employee and professor for refusing to lie to a student,” said Aaron Baer, President of the Center for Christian Virtue, an ally of Alliance Defending Freedom.
“Professor Meriwether and the Alliance Defending Freedom have done a tremendous service to our country. They have demonstrated the impact we can have when we are not bullied into silence by the government or the woke mob. Christians across our country should take heart and be encouraged to stand up for what we know is true, and not be pressured into silence.”
View the video below from Fox News discussing Dr. Meriwether’s case.
The Bottom Line:
Genesis 5:2 says “GOD created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created.”
