Teacher sues school district after getting fired for refusing to respect trans students
Jordan Cernek made his views on trans students clear. Now, he can't handle the consequences.
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For two years, Jordan Cernek taught high school English in the Argyle School District in Wisconsin. He signed up for a coaching gig, as many new teachers do, and his evaluations were fine. But during his second year, the District instituted a new policy requiring teachers to use the requested names/pronouns of trans students.
Cernek refused to do it because he claimed it “would violate his Christian beliefs.” The school tried to accommodate his wishes to the point of absurdity. For example, he suggested not using any students’ names. He would just point at them. Or maybe nod in their direction. At one point, he offered to call a trans student by their last name (which he did not do for other students). as a “good middle ground.” The student agreed, perhaps reluctantly, but the student’s father (who also taught at the school) objected to it.
At some point, it became clear he was treating the trans students (and there were two in his classes) differently. According to a 2022 letter to Cernek from District Administrator Mike Beranek, Cernek was still using “the wrong names for transgender students” and students and families were reporting “several concerns.”
That same warning letter told Cernek to use those students’ preferred names when making rosters for substitute teachers and seating charts. He refused.
In fact, in a response letter, Cernek rejected the very existence of trans people (“[E]ach person is born a male or a female. There is no deviation from this reality”) and said he couldn’t possibly be misgendering students because “the name I call each student is legally and objectively his or her own name from birth. Therefore, I would argue that I am calling students by their right names.”
In short, he was admitting to the district’s allegations and opening the district up to legal liability. That’s why his contract wasn’t renewed the following year. In a speech delivered to the school board before they voted on his non-renewal, Cernek made it abundantly clear that he didn’t give a damn what the law said because God told him to be a bigot. Here’s the prepared text of his remarks:
My immediate goal is simple: to proclaim the truth to a deceived world.
Throughout the U.S., students are showing increased signs of anxiety, fear, and attempted suicide. The solution is complex, but it starts with rebuilding a foundation of morality and truth on which to build our lives. Our kids need stability and security, and that comes from unchanging truths that have existed since the beginning of time. A kid can go outside and know he won't tip over because gravity is a real thing. There's a lot of fear and worry today because kids are unsure of what is true anymore.
Furthermore, I am committed to Truth and Reason which both teach and affirm only two sexes: male and female. There is no room for deviation. Our Creator made the world that way. He made each of us with worth, value, and dignity. To play along with the farce of gender identity like many adults are doing today is to lessen the dignity of each person. God didn't make any mistakes, and to say he did is confusing, lying, and undignifying. I desire that those I disagree with would stop seeking happiness and peace in their sexual identity and instead find hope and security in Jesus, the One who created them distinctly male and female, made for a relationship with him.
There’s no indication he had tenure or that the district was obligated to keep him on staff. And when a teacher is openly declaring that he will never respect trans students because he believes they are fundamentally lying to themselves, there’s no reason to keep him around.
Now Cernek is suing the district, arguing that they forced him to violate his faith. In legalese, he says they fired him “because of his sincerely held religious beliefs”:
… Mr. Cernek explained [to the district] that he has “only acted according to the rule of [his] conscience, which is governed and held accountable to God, the one to whom all creatures owe their allegiance. It is before God alone that we must all stand to be judged someday. It is he and he alone who initiates biological sex; human identity, value, and worth; and all truth. If my religious beliefs and personal liberty place me at odds with the School District of Argyle or even the United States Department of Education, so be it.”
It’s almost laughable to see that particular passage in the lawsuit because he says that if his faith puts him “at odds” with the school district, then his faith-based bigotry must come first… in a lawsuit he’s filing because he can’t handle how the district fired him due to his bigotry. “So be it” my ass.
It’s completely irrelevant that Cernek had a faith-based reason to belittle trans kids. If you can’t respect your students by calling them by their names, you have no business being a teacher. His form of hate may be welcome in a church, but public schools have a responsibility to be an inclusive space where all students are safe. Cernek made it clear that he could not treat trans kids like other students. He announced that in advance. The school district had every right—indeed, a responsibility—to punish him for it.
The issue was never his faith. It was his actions. His refusal to follow the district’s rules. There are undoubtedly plenty of Christian teachers in that district who are excellent. There may be plenty of Christian teachers who disagree with district policies on LGBTQ issues, but they chose to work in a public school district and they’re obligated to follow the district’s rules.
Cernek seems to think being a Christian gives him the right to mistreat trans kids. It’s no wonder that a right-wing legal group, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, is representing him.
No one was ever asking Cernek to accept or even care about trans people. All he had to do was call them by their names and use their pronouns. He wouldn’t do it.
Being a Christian isn’t a legitimate excuse to treat students like shit. Cernek had no business working in a public school because he was fostering a classroom environment in which certain students would walk in knowing that he looked down upon them. That he thought their very sense of being was a mistake. That he didn’t want what’s best for them because he was only concerned about what’s best for him.
As conservatives love to say all the time, a public school classroom is no place for advancing your personal agenda.
Interesting side note: According to a bio of Cernek on the website for Reformed Baptist Seminary, he writes that when he first began preaching, “people would leave the middle of my sermon in disgust. One woman stared at me for an entire service with a hateful scorn. The Word of God is offensive.” (He says in that same bio that “I lost my job at the public school because I refused to go along with the farce of gender ideology.”) And yet, in addition to working with a “local trucking company,” Cernek says he’s currently serving as a pastor in a rural Illinois town.
So his brand of hate remains alive and well. Thankfully it’s not being unleashed at a public school.
There isn't much of anything that cannot be justified in the name of religious belief. A thousand years of Christianity in Germany did not prevent the rise of the Nazis, and millions of German Christians willingly did Hitler's bidding. Religion and morality are not mutually exclusive, but they are very far from being the same thing. I've read a great deal of history, and people like this teacher are a big part of why the writers of the U.S. Constitution did not give religion any role to play in governance. They understood full-well the dangers of handing power to religious people.
He must have seen the pay and lack of benefits most private religious schools offer and decided teaching while being an open bigot wasn't for him. Because that would be the obvious choice, there's plenty of hateful Christian academies.