Let me tell you about Nicholas Meriwether, a professor at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio who fought and won against the woke transgender brigade at his university.
In 2018, Meriwether refused to go along with the transgender nonsense and call someone by their "preferred" [read: incorrect] pronoun.
You know, because lying is bad.
The school then chastised Meriwether for not going along with the gender madness and Meriwether sued.
And after three years, he has finally won.
From the triggered journalists over at NBC:
A small, public university in Ohio agreed last week to pay one of its professors $400,000 after it rebuked him for refusing to use a transgender student's preferred pronouns.
Shawnee State University, in Portsmouth, roughly 85 miles south of Columbus, warned Nicholas Meriwether, a philosophy professor, in 2018 about not using the pronouns.
In response, Meriwether, who is an evangelical Christian, filed a federal lawsuit against the university that year, contending that officials violated his constitutional rights by compelling him to speak in a way that contradicts his religious beliefs.
400 grand was paid out because the university harassed a professor for refusing to lie.
That's a steep price for a small school.
Go woke go broke.
The agreement goes beyond the payday.
The settlement of the case follows a three-year legal battle that ended last year, with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Meriwether's favor. Meriwether's legal representation, the Alliance Defending Freedom, applauded the agreement to compensate him.
"This case forced us to defend what used to be a common belief — that nobody should be forced to contradict their core beliefs just to keep their job," Travis Barham, senior counsel for the alliance, said in a statement last week. "Dr. Meriwether went out of his way to accommodate his students and treat them all with dignity and respect, yet his university punished him because he wouldn't endorse an ideology that he believes is false."
Meriwether's settlement included a payout for his attorney fees and assurance from the university that he will "never be mandated to use pronouns, including if a student requests pronouns that conflict with his or her biological sex," according to ADF's statement.
Not only does Meriwether get the $400,000 payday, but the school also agreed to never try to force the issue again.
This is a win for Meriwether personally and for free speech and truth.
Shawnee State is still defiant, however. They are claiming that, somehow, they didn't lose this battle and they are still totally right.
Shawnee State said in a statement last week that it "adamantly" denies that it "deprived Dr. Meriwether of his free speech rights or his rights to freely exercise his religion," and called the settlement an "economic decision."
"We continue to stand behind a student's right to a discrimination-free learning environment as well as the rights of faculty, visitors, students and employees to freely express their ideas and beliefs," the university said. "Over the course of this lawsuit, it became clear that the case was being used to advance divisive social and political agendas at a cost to the university and its students. That cost is better spent on fulfilling Shawnee State's mission of service to our students, families and community."
"I'm not owned! I'm not owned!" shrieked the lefties over at Shawnee.
Guess what though?
You still lost.
Congratulations to Meriwether and the Alliance Defending Freedom for this victory on behalf of truth and reality.
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