Are You Guilty of Trying to Take Away Freedom of Speech?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the First Amendment’s guaranteed right to freedom of speech. There was a big win for freedom of speech recently, and it deserves to be celebrated. According to Mary Margaret Olohan at The Daily Signal, the was a “resounding victory for freedom of speech in Vermont. She wrote the following about the case.

A Vermont school district punished a father and his daughter for speaking out against a biological male in the girls’ locker room. Now, The Daily Signal has learned, the district has settled with the Allen Family in what its legal team is hailing as a “resounding victory.” That settlement requires that the Vermont School Boards Insurance Trust pay $125,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees and costs to Travis Allen and Jessica Allen, on behalf of their daughter, Blake Allen, and their attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom. Under the settlement, the district will reinstate Travis Allen, the father, as middle school soccer coach, and will scrub any records of discipline against Travis Allen and daughter Blake from school records.

Further, the settlement requires the Orange Southwest School District Board and school officials named in the Allens’ lawsuit to remove any content posted online by the school related to the locker room business as well as from the bulletin board or boards at Randolph Union Middle/High School displaying “love and support” messages to the trans-identifying student….

In their lawsuit filed in October, the Allens said that they “were punished for expressing their view on a matter of profound public concern: whether a teenage male who ‘identifies’ as female should be permitted to change in a girls’ locker room, regardless of the discomfort experienced by the girls in that room.”

“In objecting to a male being in the room while the girls are changing, Travis and Blake each made comments underscoring that the trans-identifying student is in fact a male, including by using male pronouns,” said the lawsuit, … “Indeed, their view of the student’s maleness was foundational to their opinions on appropriate use of the locker room.”

“Yet, their remarks were too much for Defendants’ transgender orthodoxy – Travis was deemed to have ‘misgendered’ the student, while Blake was found guilty of ‘harassment’ and ‘bullying’ – so Defendants disciplined both of them.” …

Several of Blake’s fellow female students who spoke with The Daily Signal said they asked the student to leave, but said the student did not immediately do so. The girls said that the student stood in the corner and looked at them while they were changing, causing them to feel uncomfortable.

We should celebrate this settlement as a huge victory. Every American has the right to speak as they please as long as they do not slander another person – or yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater.