Family Receives $125,000 After School Board Punishes Father, Daughter for Speaking Out Against Trans Student

Orange Southwest School District has agreed to settle with a family after penalizing the family for speaking out against a transgender student, paying a hefty settlement to the injured party.

The Allen family was awarded a settlement of $125,000, draining the coffers of the school district, after filing a lawsuit alleging that they had been subjected to punitive treatment from the school for using their First Amendment rights to speak out about a transgender individual who was making their daughter uncomfortable.

The family claims that they first began expressing concerns about the transgender individual after this person began using the girls’ locker room at school, causing discomfort among the biological females in that most intimate space. The school district alleges that their complaints “misgendered” this specified individual.

In retaliation, the family patriarch Travis Allen was suspended without pay from his position as coach of the district’s middle school soccer league, and the family’s daughter was forbidden to use the locker room along with several of her teammates for criticizing the transgender student.

“In objecting to a male being in the room while the girls are changing, Travis and Blake each made comments underscoring that the trans-identifying student is in fact a male, including by using male pronouns,” the lawsuit contended. “Yet, their remarks were too much for Defendants’ transgender orthodoxy — Travis was deemed to have ‘misgendered’ the student, while Blake was found guilty of ‘harassment’ and ‘bullying’—so Defendants disciplined both of them.”

However, the family chose not to back down. They enlisted the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization supportive of conservative Christian values, who called the settlement “resounding victory for freedom of speech.”

The school has also agreed to reinstate Travis Allen to his soccer coaching position as well as expunge the record of disciplinary actions against Travis and Blake (Travis’ wife) Allen.

District Superintendent Layne Millington said “the district is pleased to resolve the lawsuit at this early stage and return our focus to educating students.”