Brief filed in McCord’s lawsuit against South Madison Schools

Nov. 22—PENDLETON — A brief seeking protection of a former Pendleton Heights High School counselor’s freedom of speech has been filed in a federal district court case against the school district.

The brief — in support of plaintiff Kathy McCord’s request for partial summary judgment — was filed Thursday by the Alliance Defending Freedom in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.

The South Madison Community School Corporation fired McCord, a veteran teacher, after she sent an email questioning the school district’s gender identity policy.

“No educator should be fired for expressing her beliefs, especially when she speaks in her personal capacity, on her own time, and out of concern for her students,” the organization’s senior counsel, Vincent Wagner, said in a press release about the motion.

“Yet when Kathy told the truth about South Madison’s controversial practice of keeping parents in the dark about changing kids’ names and pronouns, the school district did just that. … South Madison violated Kathy’s rights by firing her for telling the truth.”

McCord is represented in the lawsuit by attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom, a firm specializing in litigation involving Christian practices within public schools and in government.

South Madison Superintendent Mark Hall said Friday that district officials would not comment on pending litigation.

McCord’s decision to file a federal lawsuit in May 2023 against the South Madison Community Schools Corp. was based on a belief that issues of student gender identity rights and parental authority and involvement are bigger than her job, she said at the time.

Among the allegations in the filing are that South Madison violated her constitutional rights to free speech by firing her in retaliation for voicing disagreement with the district’s gender support plan. The disclosure of that plan generated controversy among parents and residents in the district, which has an enrollment of approximately 4,400 students.

McCord told The Herald Bulletin that the plan, initially implemented in the fall of 2021, raised red flags with her immediately.

“I prayed about it a lot … and I went along with it at that time,” McCord said. “But when it started back up in the fall of ’22, I just felt like … that God really reached out and said, this happened, now you’ve got to deal with it. I just didn’t feel like it was something I could let go and not simply answer the questions.

“I just felt like I had to do more for this situation as it’s unfolding across the country.”

The email, which McCord sent in August 2022 to a group of teachers who had a student in their classes expressing a desire to be called by a different name, was leaked to a group of parents and later published in a story in the Daily Signal, a news website funded by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Follow Andy Knight on Twitter @Andrew_J_Knight, or call 765-640-4809.

EMEA Tribune is not involved in this news article, it is taken from our partners and or from the News Agencies. Copyright and Credit go to the News Agencies, email news@emeatribune.com Follow our WhatsApp verified Channel