Pamela Ricard, who was up until last year a middle school teacher in the Geary County, Kansas, school district, has won a settlement in a lawsuit she raised against the school district. Ricard was suspended during the 2021 school year by school administrators after she refused to refer to a student by her preferred pronouns, which did not comport with her biological sex, and for her refusal to abide by a school directive to deceive parents regarding their child’s proclaimed gender identity.

Ricard was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which contended that the administrators had violated Ricard’s religious rights when they demanded that she willfully deceive parents. ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer explained, “No school district should ever force teachers to willfully deceive parents or engage in any speech that violates their deeply held religious beliefs.”

Langhofer celebrated the settlement by stating, “We’re pleased to settle this case favorably on behalf of Pam, and we hope that it will encourage school districts across the country to support the constitutionally protected freedom of teachers to teach and communicate honestly with both children and parents.”

This case is significant for at least two reasons. The first is that of reaffirming every American’s First Amendment rights, both freedom of speech and of religion. Ricard, who is a Christian, correctly asserted that being forced to use a student’s preferred pronouns was a violation of her free speech as well as her faith, as one of the most fundamental tenets of the Bible forbids lying. The Ninth Commandment reads, “You shall not bear false witness,” and it has long been recognized as applicable not merely in a legal sense but beyond in everyday communication with one’s neighbors.

Secondly, this situation exposes a deeper and more insidious problem within much of the American public school system — the view that school administrators and teachers know better and therefore should be the greater authority in a student’s life than their parents. Hence, the directive given to Ricard to deceive parents regarding their child should the child embrace the gender-bending identity insanity.

Another recent example underscoring this reality of schools seeking to secretly indoctrinate children into this extreme leftist ideology comes from Project Veritas. Undercover videos expose an assistant principle at an elementary school in Greenwich, Connecticut, who boasts about how he ensures “subtle” indoctrination of children at his school in leftist political ideology. He further explains how he secretly discriminates against the hiring of Catholic and conservative teachers so as to further ensure the school normalizes a consistently left ideological worldview.

What is at stake in America’s schools is the war for children’s minds. The Left has taken over much of the public school system and is using the schools to corrupt the minds of children both against their parents’ ideals and the ideals upon which this nation was founded. Ricard’s settlement represents one small victory in a culture war for the hearts and minds of America’s youth. More and more parents are and have been waking up to this reality, but there is still a long way to go.