Nashville School district removes LGBTQ content following religious liberty dispute with teacher

A Nashville school district voluntarily removed gender ideology content that may have violated a state law requiring schools to notify parents of sex-related curriculum.

“The school, on its own accord, decided to pull all of these books now under the Tennessee statute,” First Liberty Senior Counsel Cliff Martin told Heartlander News in an interview. “They could have requested consent from the parents, but instead they chose to pull all of the books.”

First Liberty Institute wrote to KIPP Antioch College Prep Elementary School in February after the school removed Eric Rivera from his first-grade teaching position for excusing himself from reading two books containing pro-LGBTQ ideology. Rivera offered to have his co-teacher read them instead but said he could not teach them because of his religious convictions, as previously reported.

The non-profit charter school denied Rivera a religious accommodation and threatened him with a “final warning” of termination, claiming that his actions may have caused students to “miss content aligned with the scope of this unit.”

“In so doing, KIPP tacitly conceded that it will never permit someone with traditional marriage views to teach first grade,” First Liberty’s letter stated. “By this anti-religious personnel practice, KIPP has violated Mr. Rivera’s right to honor his own conscience and live according to his legally protected religious beliefs.”

KIPP Nashville replied to First Liberty’s letter saying the school would accommodate teachers with religious objections, had restored Rivera to his position and cleared his record, according to a First Liberty press release. First Liberty again wrote, copying the state attorney general, and informed KIPP Nashville that reading gender ideology books to kids requires parental consent under Tennessee law. A few weeks later, KIPP Nashville wrote to the Tennessee AG, saying the district had reviewed its curriculum and removed a list of 22 books that may violate the Tennessee law.

“So they went far beyond what Eric Rivera requested, and Eric, to be clear, did not request that the books be removed,” Martin said.

Tennessee State Code §49-6-1308, signed in 2021, requires schools to notify parents at least 30 days before curriculum containing sexual orientation or gender identity is introduced in the classroom. Parents who do not consent can opt their children out of the curriculum.

In its letter to the AG, obtained by Heartlander News, KIPP Nashville said its “priority is to provide students the foundational building blocks of a lifelong education: math, reading comprehension, etc.” and “to avoid distractions from that core goal.” The letter then lists 22 books the school district removed “out of an abundance of caution” that could have been “even remotely implicated” by the Tennessee law.

“So KIPP says, out of an abundance of caution, they removed the content, and so they didn’t admit ‘we should not have had this in the curriculum,’ but they did remove it,” Martin said.

The letter lists 21 books, which appear to be in the first grade curriculum, including the two Rivera refused to read. The final book removed falls under seventh grade curriculum, titled Why I Learned to Cook, which opens with a “make-out” scene between two high school girls.

Martin said this response is a victory for parents, Tennessee law and the Constitution, saying religious views must be respected in schools.

“We are pleased that the Tennessee statute is doing its job, in that the school is recognizing its obligations and not teaching material to children without their parents’ consent, as the Tennessee law requires,” Martin said. “And so we see this as a victory for parents and for the Tennessee law that requires parental consent before teaching these materials to young children.”