Oakland, CA, Dec. 19, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A California kindergarten teacher has filed a federal lawsuit against the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), alleging a violation of her First Amendment rights related to the gender transition of her five year-old student. Mirella Ramirez alleges that she was fired from her job as a kindergarten teacher after the OUSD forced her to refer to her five year-old female student as a male, and refused to honor her request for a religious accommodation. Ramirez informed the district that as a devout Catholic, she does not believe in gender transition, and would not be using male pronouns when addressing the girl. The 30-page complaint, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that the school violated Ramirez’s First Amendment right to free speech by compelling her to engage in speech that violated her sincerely-held religious beliefs, conditioning any accommodation on her promise to violate her religious beliefs, and then firing her when she didn’t comply. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages including back pay, front pay, punitive damages, and compensatory damages. Ramirez has also filed a complaint of religious discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The lawsuit was funded by We The Patriots USA (WTP USA), a nonprofit public interest law firm that Ramirez contacted for help when the OUSD first disciplined her for refusing to use the preferred pronouns. “This lawsuit is extremely important in that teachers are our first line of defense in protecting our children from dangerous indoctrination in our public schools,” said Attorney Brian Festa, Vice-President Co-Founder of WTP USA, regarding today’s filing. “Parents all over the country have been voicing their opposition to these policies to their school boards, and sadly in most cases the school boards have ignored them. But ultimately it’s up to the teachers to implement the policies, and most are too afraid to refuse. By bravely taking a stand for her faith, Mirella is fighting back not only for herself, but for all teachers and children whose religious beliefs oppose transgender ideology.” In 2021, Ramirez was nominated for the Teacher of the Year award.
Harmeet Dhillon’s Dhillon Law Group is serving as local counsel in the litigation, alongside WTP USA’s lead counsel Cameron Atkinson of Atkinson Law. Atkinson released the following statement shortly after the filing: “Oakland required Mirella to promise to violate her Catholic faith before it would even consider accommodating her. When she refused, Oakland equated her to a child molester. The First Amendment does not permit any hostility to a person’s religious beliefs, let alone hostility that prescribed social re-education and dished out lifelong character smears when Mirella refused to renounce her faith.”
WTP USA has created a fundraiser for Ramirez’s legal fees, which has a goal of $50,000. Tax-deductible donations for 2024 can be made to the fundraiser, or to WTP USA’s year-end campaign, by December 31, 2024.
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