Love this bit:
“The State of Florida has not justified this grave restraint, and so the United States Constitution does not tolerate it. Ours is a Union of individuals, celebrating ourselves and singing ourselves and being ourselves without apology.”
Me too! I feel like this quote really shows off the care and humanity of the judge. While you see that throughout other quotes it shows that he isn’t too hung up on technicalities but is really showing his humanity. 11/10
This is a good win, but this:
In his decision, he refuted several arguments presented by the state, including the claim that Ms. Wood using “Ms.” could “impede her job duties.” He found this assertion to be unfounded, noting instead that as a teacher, Ms. Wood’s students achieved test scores higher than the district average.
This is a problem. It should not matter if Ms. Wood’s students perform above or below average. The first amendment does not have qualifiers related to job performance. Even if she was a terrible teacher, that does not constitute a compelling interest in misgendering someone at work. The argument that it might affect her abilities to teach are wholly without merit, not because she is a good teacher, but because her gender is unrelated to her teaching.
It might be splitting hairs here, but the judge isn’t using that as a qualifier for his ruling, he’s using it to refute FL’s assertion. You’re right that FL should lose automatically based on First Amendment reasons, but one of the criteria for filing an appeal is the probability of success on the merits. Demonstrating that FL’s arguments are provably wrong helps to make the ruling more resistant to an appeal, should FL decide to appeal it.
But see that’s where I think the judge erred. By refuting the assertion with evidence of good teaching, the judge creates a test for future rulings. Proving the argument wrong in this case means that the argument would be valid in other cases. So transgender teachers who’s students are below average don’t have the same rights?
The district has to prove a compelling interest to infringe on the rights of an employee. The burden of proof is on the district, not the teacher, and it should not have been entertained at all.
Weird…a rational ruling in FL. I didn’t think that was possible.
