Shawnee State University Professor Nick Meriwether, who recently settled his First Amendment case, told Newsmax that universities should not be places of "compelled speech."
Meriwether's case involved a transgender student who asked him to use their preferred pronoun. He told "Greg Kelly Reports," after he worked out a deal with the student, "initially the university was fine with that. I would use his proper feminine first name, or his last name if that's what he wanted me to use, and that was fine at least for a period of time, but then the university changed course and decided to require me to endorse the transgender ideology, that the student wanted me to be forced to endorse, and that's where I had to say, 'well I can't do that.'"
After the university changed its policy, Meriwether felt compelled to file his lawsuit because he received a "letter in [his] file," which, he said precedes termination.
The judge in the case, Judge Amul Thapar, was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump, according to the New York Post.
Thapar, a contender for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat, writes in his 32-page decision that "the First Amendment interests are especially strong here because Meriwether's speech also relates to his core religious and philosophical beliefs. If professors lacked free-speech protections when teaching, a university would wield alarming power to compel ideological conformity."
Thapar's ruling stands as precedent in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court.
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