In American public colleges and universities, faculty are supposed to be able to guide their students towards a better understanding of truth, reality, and the world around them freely and in accordance with their own convictions. But as part of its effort to redefine “sex” in Title IX, the Biden administration is seeking to compel faculty and administrators at public schools to speak and act in violation of their deeply held beliefs about gender and sexuality.
The First Amendment guarantees that all Americans, including those who teach at public schools, have the right to speak and act in accordance with their deeply held beliefs—even if those beliefs are offensive to someone else. If the Biden administration gets its way, that right to freedom of speech will be in grave danger.
The administration is trying to change the definition of “sex” in Title IX to include “gender identity”—a seemingly small change. In practice, however, this change would compel professors, teachers, and administrators at public schools and universities to address and treat students based on students’ self-identified “gender identity,” whether by addressing students by their “preferred pronouns” or verbally affirming the claims of gender identity ideology. Professors, teachers, and administrators would be required to do this, even if doing so goes against their deeply held beliefs. Dissent will not be tolerated.
There have already been attempts to compel professors to sacrifice their freedom of speech at the altar of gender identity. As philosophy professor Nicholas Meriwether learned, it does not matter how beloved a professor is or how dedicated and excellent he is at his job—that counts as nothing if he happens to believe something that the current powers-that-be don’t like.
Dr. Meriwether taught at Shawnee State University for years, consistently getting high praise from students for his rigorous instruction and kindly demeanor. He took care to cultivate an environment of care for learning and for each other by encouraging students to consider views different from their own. In 2018, however, that care and respect threatened to drive Dr. Meriwether out of a job. When a student demanded to be addressed by terms and pronouns inconsistent with the student’s biological sex, Dr. Meriwether declined, due to his deeply held beliefs about the nature of gender and sexuality.
Dr. Meriwether proposed a compromise: He told the student that he would be happy to address the student by any name, and that he would avoid using any pronouns altogether in reference to this student. But that was not enough. The university informed Dr. Meriwether that he would have to address the student using the student’s preferred pronouns and titles or purge his vocabulary of all pronouns for all students. Or, of course, he could lose his job.