Teachers file lawsuit against Florida over new pronoun law

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Three teachers filed a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Education over a new pronoun law.

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of the teachers challenging the law, which was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May.

The group is seeking an injunction preventing enforcement of subsection 3, which prevents employees from telling students that the employee uses preferred pronouns. One of the teachers is seeking damages from their employer, who fired them for violating the law.

They alleged the law “unlawfully discriminates on the basis of sex and restrains the teachers’ speech, in violation of the U.S. Constitution and civil rights statutes.”

The new law also prevents employees and students from being required to refer to others by preferred pronouns and prevents employees from asking students what pronouns they go by.

A spokesperson for the department told Florida’s Voice it is unable to comment on pending litigation, however, referred to a letter Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. sent to Orange County Public Schools in November.

Florida’s Voice previously reported that the department responded to Orange County Public Schools after the district sent a letter asking for clarification about a new law regarding pronoun usage in schools.

Orange County School Board Chair Teresa Jacobs said in a letter to the department that the district plans to allow employees, contractors and students to “honor parental choice in pronouns if they so choose,” unless the department informed them that “such practice is contrary to law.”

Jacobs said some have “interpreted” Florida statute to read that because it is “false” to give a person a pronoun that does not correspond to a person’s sex, then an employee, contractor or student using a preferred pronoun is prohibited by law.

However, Diaz said the statute is already “clear” and that the school district is misinterpreting the word “false.”

“There’s a stark difference between something being false and something being prohibited,” Diaz wrote.

“I’m unsure how those two could be confused. In fact, the First Amendment protects a multitude of false statements,” he continued. “I believe clearing up this misinterpretation solves the rest of your problems.”

Diaz said Florida law conveys truth that it is “false” to give someone a pronoun that does not correspond to a person’s sex.

“If that subsection prohibits anything, it simply prohibits public educational institutions like the Orange County School District from proclaiming as true what is false regarding a person’s biological sex,” he said.