Shawnee Mission high school teacher Jennifer Caedran Sullivan’s civil rights suit against the district over diversity training, pronouns and opinion pieces she wrote in 2023 has been significantly pared down, now that federal Judge Daniel Crabtree has dismissed two of her key claims.
In a ruling last week in the U.S. District Court of Kansas, Crabtree reviewed multiple motions for dismissal by the district, detailing legal reasons for allowing some of the claims to move forward while dismissing others.
Notably, a part of his ruling sided with the district and dismissed the parts asserting that Sullivan’s free speech rights were violated when she was expected to use alternative pronouns and names when referring to students, and for alleged retaliation for a letter she sent to district offices opposing mandatory diversity training.
The judge did allow Sullivan’s claim that she suffered retaliation for published opinion pieces lamenting anti-white bias and “woke” ideology in the district to stand, along with her claims that the district violated her free exercise of religion.
Below is a copy of Crabtree’s motion for partial dismissal of some of Sullivan’s claims.
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Open in new tab The teacher sued SMSD last year over “leftist” ideology
Sullivan, an English teacher at Shawnee Mission North High School, sued almost a year ago over a dispute with the district that dated back to 2021.
She asked for unspecified damages, saying the district treated her unfairly for expressing her religious views in her refusal to use alternative pronouns and names as requested by students.
She also criticized mandatory diversity training in a letter to district officials, saying the training was racist and presented a “leftist” ideology.
She contended that being required to use pronouns or names that did not agree with the student’s gender assigned at birth violated her free speech and deeply held religious beliefs.
Sullivan said the district reprimanded her when she allegedly used wrong pronouns on a student, eventually stripping her of her advanced placement classes and causing damage to her career.
Her complaints gained national attention when she wrote opinion pieces in The Lion, an online right-wing publication, that were picked up by other media.
Crabtree allowed parts of the case to move forward
Crabtree addressed numerous legal questions arising from Sullivan’s original 102-page suit about what issues would proceed to argument and who would remain as defendants.
Sullivan alleged that her free speech was violated because of her position on pronouns, students’ names and on DEI training.
But Crabtree cited case law that said the First Amendment free speech generally doesn’t apply when the speech is pursuant to a person’s official duties. Since the training and talking to students is a part of Sullivan’s job, she was not speaking as a private citizen, he wrote.
“Rhetoric makes a poor substitute for legal authority,” Crabtree wrote. He then quoted another case (Mayer v. Monroe, 2007) that said the, “First Amendment does not entitle primary and secondary teachers, when conducting the education of captive audiences, to cover topics or advocate viewpoints that depart from the curriculum adopted by the school system.”
By that analysis, he said, requiring the use of a student’s preferred name and pronouns doesn’t violate Sullivan’s free speech rights.
Crabtree also wrote that her right to refuse to use the alternative pronouns was not clearly established by case law in other courts.
Below is a copy of Sullivan’s original civil suit.
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The remaining claim concerning the district’s alleged reaction to Sullivan’s op-ed pieces remains in the suit as an issue that can be argued going forward.
Crabtree also dismissed claims against 11 individual defendants, including school board members and some administrators not directly involved in Sullivan’s allegations, but kept the Shawnee Mission School District as a defendant.
There has been no comment on the ruling from the Shawnee Mission School District office.
