From Friday's opinion by Judge Daniel D. Domenico (D. Colo.) in Darren Patterson Christian Academy v. Roy (for more on a different facet of the case and on the possible relevance, or not, of government funding, see this post):
"[T]he First Amendment protects an individual's right to speak his mind regardless of whether the government considers his speech sensible and well intentioned or deeply misguided and likely to cause anguish or incalculable grief. 303 Creative, LLC v. Elenis (2023). "Generally, too, the government may not compel a person to speak its own preferred messages." Indeed, the Court held in 303 Creative that Colorado could not compel a wedding-website designer to create websites that did not discriminate on bases similar to those at issue in this case.
In an even more on-point case, the Sixth Circuit held that a public university's requirement that professors use a student's preferred pronouns in the classroom amounted to a Free Speech violation. Meriwether v. Hartop (6th Cir. 2021). That case involved a professor plaintiff at a public university who declined to use a student's preferred pronouns, instead seeking to refer to that student in name only while referring to other students with pronouns corresponding to their biological sex. That plaintiff faced even more obstacles than Plaintiff would here in proving a Free Speech claim given the various doctrines limiting the ability of public-school teachers to bring First Amendment claims. Even still, the Sixth Circuit held that compelling such speech violated the professor's free-speech free exercise rights. [The words "free exercise" seem to have been erroneously included here by the court. -EV]
The Ninth Circuit has also arrived at a similar conclusion in a related context. They held that an Oregon anti-discrimination law requiring a "natural-born-female-only" beauty pageant to allow transgender contestants violated the pageant's expressive free-speech rights. Green v. Miss United States of Am., LLC (9th Cir. 2022). As the Ninth Circuit noted, this accorded with its "long-standing hesitation to enforce anti-discrimination statutes in the speech context."
