CV NEWS FEED // A California public school teacher who was fired for her religious beliefs reached a settlement of $360,000 this week in her lawsuit against her school district.
News outlet KLTA 5 reported that the teacher, Jessica Tapia, was placed on administrative leave in 2022 and then fired from her position with Jurupa Unified School District in 2023 after Tapia refused to comply with the district’s LGBT policies.
According to a news release from Advocates for Faith and Freedom, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Tapia in 2023, her religious beliefs conflicted with the policies, which required Tapia to refer to students by their preferred pronouns and not share information with parents regarding their child’s “gender identity.”
The Jurupa Unified School District Board approved the settlement with Tapia on May 13.
According to KTLA, Tapia wrote on social media after reaching the settlement, “I chose to stand for truth and my religious beliefs by informing my school district that I would not comply with their directives that would require me to lie to my students about their gender, lie to their parents about that information and allow boys into my girls’ locker room.”
In the release, Advocates for Faith and Freedom legal counsel Julianne Fleischer hailed the settlement for “(serving) as a reminder that religious freedom is protected, no matter your career.”
Fleischer praised Tapia for holding the school district accountable and setting a precedent for other teachers who may encounter similar conflicts.
“What happened to me can happen to anybody, and I want the next teacher to know that it is worth it to take a stand for what is right,” Tapia said in the news release. “Across the country, we are seeing teachers’ freedom of speech and religious liberty violated through policies that require them to forsake their morals. I want teachers to be confident in the fact that the best thing we can do for students is educate in truth, not deception.”
For this reason, Tapia continued, she and Advocates for Faith and Freedom are launching a campaign to help teachers with religious beliefs deepen their knowledge of their constitutional rights. The campaign, “Teachers Don’t Lie,” will also offer resources to help teachers know how to respond if their school district asks them to go against their religious beliefs.
Tapia concluded, “I am confident that we are making progress to ensure that no teacher has their faith violated within schoolhouse gates again.”
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