Derek Schmidt picks the wrong side in the war on pronouns. She should know better
Attorney General Derek Schmidt has jumped on the bandwagon with those cheering the Geary County school district for granting a $95,000 settlement to an ex-schoolteacher who refused to call students by their preferred names and pronouns.
In a press release celebrating this gift of public funds, Schmidt’s hot take was “In America, when the First Amendment meets woke ideology, the First Amendment wins.”
She should know better.
Now, I know Derek identifies as male and prefers he/him pronouns.
But I wanted to give Derek a little taste of what it feels like to get misgendered.
When you’re male and your name is Dion, it happens a lot.
I pronounce my name Dye-on and couldn’t begin to count the times I answered the phone and somebody wanted to speak with “Ms. Dee-on Lefler” instead. Occasionally, they’ll even argue with me about it and I’ll just hang up.
But that’s accidental and excusable.
What’s inexcusable is to do it on purpose, like former Geary County teacher Pamela Ricard.
As usual, when someone acts obnoxiously toward an LGBTQ+ individual, Ricard claimed to be motivated by — you guessed it — “sincere religious beliefs.”
“Ms. Ricard believes that God created human beings as either male or female, that this sex is fixed in each person from the moment of conception, and that it cannot be changed, regardless of an individual person’s feelings, desires, or preferences,” says the federal lawsuit they filed against the school district. “Any policy that requires Ms. Ricard to refer to a student by a gendered, non-binary, or plural pronoun (e.g., he/him, she/her, they/them, zhe/zher, etc.) or salutation (Mr., Miss, Ms.) or other gendered language that is different from the student’s biological sex actively violates Ms. Ricard’s religious beliefs.”
I would challenge Ricard or anybody else to direct me to the section of the Bible where it addresses “gendered, non-binary, or plural pronoun(s).”
There isn’t one.
So maybe Ricard can explain to Jesus someday why zhe felt it necessary to go out of zher way to hurt children entrusted to her daily care, who struggle to understand their gender identity.
In the meantime, Ricard can explain to all of us why the state of Kansas should have to pay $95,000 to salve zher hurt feelings when zhe was the one that started it.
From my own sincere religious beliefs, I say this: Thank God Ricard retired and the students won’t have to suffer zher anymore.
Which brings us back to Schmidt’s explicit endorsement of bullying — because that’s exactly what this is and why Ricard got suspended for three days in 2021 for doing it.
An adult in a position of authority, singling out children who are different, and then demeaning them to make a political point, is child abuse, full stop.
If Derek Schmidt was on the right side of morality, decency and history, the attorney general would be defending the school district in court, not popping champagne over this pointless loss of $95,000 in taxpayers’ money.
Beyond that is Frau Schmidt’s feeble legal analysis. This wasn’t the victory for the First Amendment over “woke ideology” that they claim it to be.
It’s not a court ruling, just a pretrial settlement.
In essence, it’s the school board paying Ricard to get lost — and it establishes no legal precedent whatsoever for deciding future cases.
I’m surprised I have to explain that to the state’s highest-ranking lawyer.
Settlements in cases like these are generally done for two reasons:
1) It would cost more to fight it than to pay the plaintiff off, and/or 2) There are still a lot of bigoted yahoos out there and they vote, if you throw them enough red meat to organize around.
Clearly, reason 2 is the one that’s affecting Derek Schmidt’s judgment in this case.
So Missus Schmidt, if you find my use of pronouns objectionable, please sue me.
I could sure use $95,000.
This story was originally published September 4, 2022 at 3:55 PM with the headline "Derek Schmidt picks the wrong side in the war on pronouns. She should know better."
