A federal appeals court has ruled that a Maryland school district’s trans-affirming policy on student names and pronouns does not violate a Christian substitute teacher’s rights.

As the Washington Post reports, last Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld a lower court decision dismissing a former Montgomery County Public Schools substitute teacher’s claims that the district’s policy violated her constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of religion by requiring her to refer to trans and nonbinary students by names and pronouns that align with their gender identity.

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The case concerned Kimberly Polk, who, according to the Post, began working as a substitute teacher with Montgomery County schools in 2021. Polk objected to the district’s name and pronoun policy on religious grounds, citing “her understanding of her Christian religion and the Holy Bible.”

So she requested a religious accommodation. When her request was denied, Polk stopped teaching and in 2024 sued the district, claiming that its policy violated her rights under the First Amendment.

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But a lower court denied Polk’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed her to teach in elementary schools with no trans students while her case played out, and dismissed the majority of her claims. According to the Post, the court ruled that as an employee of Montgomery County Public Schools, Polk had been hired by the school board to speak on its behalf.

In last week’s 2-1 decision, a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed with the lower court, ruling that Polk had not convinced them that the policy was hostile to her religious views, and that abiding by the policy was a part of the job she had accepted with the district and thus did not violate her First Amendment rights.

“Be it choosing curriculum or placing administrative requirements on how teachers deliver that curriculum, those decisions are entrusted to the Board, not to judges,” Judge Robert B. King, a Clinton appointee, wrote for the majority. “And it is the Board — not individual teachers — which is democratically responsive. If, as Polk says, teachers and parents disagree with the Guidelines, then democratic means exist to address their concerns.”

According to the Post, the 4th Circuit’s ruling may ultimately be applied to similar cases across Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia

The paper also noted that Polk’s attorney said Friday that they may take the case to the Supreme Court.

Polk’s case is similar to one brought by a group of parents and teachers who claim that a school district in California violated their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion with its policy banning teachers from outing trans students to their parents. In December, Judge Roger Benitez with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California sided with the plaintiffs, issuing a permanent injunction barring the district from enforcing its policy. But after a panel of judges on the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a stay to Benitez’s injunction, allowing the district to continue banning teachers from outing students.

The plaintiffs in the California case have already asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit’s stay. Because both the California and Maryland cases concern whether school policies around trans students violate teachers’ religious freedom rights under the First Amendment and resulted in differing decisions from circuit courts, the Supreme Court may be more likely to consider them.

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