A Shawnee State University professor has settled for $400,000 in a lawsuit against his employer, arguing it was within his First Amendment rights to refuse using the preferred pronouns of a student who identifies as female.
Nicholas Meriwether, a Shawnee philosophy professor, was issued a written rebuke after a 2018 Title IX investigation into the situation, prompting the lawsuit, which was originally dismissed in February 2020, when a lower district court found there were no “broader societal concerns,” but revived by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.Shawnee State University, located in Portsmouth, Ohio, agreed to settle the case Thursday.
Shawnee State University issued a statement saying its decision to settle was made for economic reasons. "Though we have decided to settle, we adamantly deny that anyone at Shawnee State deprived Dr. Meriwether of his free speech rights or his rights to freely exercise his religion," the statement 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.
In the case, Meriwether argued he was standing by his Christian beliefs in refusing to use the preferred pronouns of the student and that he instead offered to call his students by either “Mr.” or “Ms.” and their last name, or simply by their last name.“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,” ADF Senior Counsel Travis Barham said.