by WorldTribune Staff, March 5, 2026 Real World News

A music teacher in Indiana who was fired after refusing to use students’ preferred pronouns due to his Christian beliefs has been paid $650,000 by the school district to settle his 2019 lawsuit.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on religious accommodations for employees prompted an appeals court to reinstate and remand John Kluge’s case for a jury trial, at which point Brownsburg Community School Corp. sought to settle.

In addition to the payment, the district will “train its senior staff on how Title VII protects religious employees against discrimination,” Kluge’s lawyers at the Alliance Defending Freedom said.

“This settlement confirms what the law has always said: Public schools cannot force teachers to … bow the knee to ideological mandates that violate their religious beliefs,” ADF Vice President of U.S. Litigation David Cortman said. “And schools should learn that refusing to accommodate religious employees can be illegal and expensive.”

Before the Supreme Court’s ruling, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had claimed the school district had a “legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason” for firing Kluge, citing “emotional harm” and disrupting the learning environment.

But Kluge’s Title VII claim was revived after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Christian postal worker Gerald Groff, requiring employers to show “substantial increased costs” if they were to grant religious accommodations such as Sundays off work.

“After careful and extended deliberation, it was deemed to be in the best interest of Brownsburg Schools’ financial situation to settle this case,” the district told WRTV.

Kluge taught at Brownsburg High School for four years. In 2017, the school district mandated that teachers refer to trans students by their preferred pronouns.

Kluge requested a religious accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to call all his students by their last names instead of referring to female students with male names and pronouns and vice versa. The school district initially granted Kluge this accommodation, and he successfully continued teaching under it for an entire school year.

But in response to complaints from a few students and teachers, the district revoked the accommodation and forced Kluge to resign, ending his teaching career.

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