Kluge v. Brownsburg; Seventh Circuit Upholds Teacher’s Religious Accommodation

09.22.2025

Can school district employees refuse to follow their school’s gender identity policies based on religious objections? On August 5, 2025, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals addressed this question in Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Corp by holding it was permissible for a teacher to address transgender students by their last name, and not their chosen names or pronouns. While this decision is not binding on the Ninth Circuit or California school districts, it provides insight into how the United States Supreme Court may handle this issue in the future.

The Brownsburg Community School District adopted a policy allowing any student to change their name and pronouns based on their gender identity. Once a student updated their information, teachers were required to use a student’s listed name and pronouns.

John Kluge, the school’s orchestra teacher, objected to the policy, generally stating that it conflicted with his religious beliefs. As an accommodation, the school allowed Mr. Kluge to call students by their last name and avoid using first names and pronouns.

Later in the school year, Brownsburg received several complaints about Kluge’s practice of using last names, with some alleging inconsistent application of the practice, as well as isolation and targeting of transgender students in the classroom.

As a result of the complaints received, the school revoked Mr. Kluge’s ability to use last names and required Kluge to refer to students by their preferred first names and pronouns. The school informed Kluge that failure to abide by this directive would result in his termination. Kluge resigned in lieu of termination. Not long after this meeting, the music department held an award ceremony in which Kluge referred to all of his students by their first names, including the preferred names of transgender students. After the ceremony, Kluge tried to rescind his resignation letter; however, the school would not allow him to do so and treated his resignation as irrevocable.

Kluge sued in Federal District Court alleging religious discrimination. He claimed, among other things, that the school violated Title VII by (1) failing to accommodate his religion; and (2) retaliating against him for engaging in protected religious conduct.

The trial court concluded that Kluge’s accommodation created an undue hardship because several transgender students in Kluge’s class felt targeted and uncomfortable, as well as the potential Title IX liability for discrimination based on gender identity. On the retaliation claim, the court found Kluge failed to establish a nexus between his protected religious activity and the school’s decision to terminate him. Even if he had done so, the court held that he could not show the school’s stated nondiscriminatory reasons were pretextual. On July 12, 2021, Kluge appealed the decision. A divided Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed the District Court’s ruling on the accommodation and the retaliation claims.

While the case was pending, the Supreme Court decided Groff v. DeJoy, which imposed a higher standard for determining whether a religious accommodation creates an undue burden on an employer. Under Groff, an employer must now show that the accommodation would impose a burden that is substantial in the overall context of their business. Thereafter, the Seventh Circuit vacated its prior decision and remanded the case back to the District Court to apply the Groff standard.

On remand, the District Court applied the Groff standard and once again ruled for Brownsburg on the accommodation. Kluge appealed the decision to the Appellate Court.

This time, the Appellate Court overruled the District Court’s decision. The Appellate Court found that under the Groff standard, Brownsburg had not established that the last-name-only accommodation created a substantial hardship on the school or its students. The Court stated that there was a factual dispute over whether the practice objectively caused harm or disruption, whether it led to emotional distress under an objective standard, and whether it actually increased the risk of Title IX liability.

Specifically, the Court held that calling a student by their last name, without more, would not inflict emotional distress on a reasonable person; as such, factual questions existed as to whether Kluge’s practices caused emotional distress, such as whether he deliberately ignored transgender students or told others the reason he used only their last names. On the issue of Title IX liability, the Court noted that any potential liability must rest on differential treatment of transgender students and noted factual disputes over whether such treatment occurred. The Court ultimately held the factual disputes were questions for a jury to decide.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Ilana Rovner wrote that the majority failed to defer to the school’s good-faith reasoning about Kluge’s religious accommodation, even though it is typical for courts to show such deference in employment discrimination cases. Judge Rovner argued that the Court should not have based its determination on disputes about whether the accommodation was creating a hardship. Rather, the court should have deferred to Brownsburg that a hardship existed, then conducted its analysis under Groff as to whether the hardship was sufficiently “substantial.”

The majority’s opinion signals that courts may not defer to school policies and the actions taken by a school to achieve them. This case may have significant implications for California schools and school districts. Groff and Kluge may impose higher burdens on school districts to support their denials of religious accommodations, especially as they concern the interplay between religious faith and protections against discrimination and harassment on the basis of gender identity. We strongly recommend reaching out to your legal counsel if you receive any religious accommodations of this nature post-Groff.

AALRR will continue monitoring Kluge and similar cases to help schools balance the goals of fostering an inclusive environment, maintaining effective operations, and respecting the religious beliefs of parents, students, and staff.

If you have any questions about this Alert, please contact your AALRR attorney or the authors of this Alert.

Special thanks to law clerks Elyse Capelli and Duncan Glover for their assistance with this alert.