A college professor in Ohio is being forced to fight back against the university that is reprimanding him for refusing to refer to a student with a pronoun that differs from his gender at birth. That this is even an issue in college, let alone something that can get a university professor nearly fired, is not only outrageous but also absurd. College should be a place where students learn, sharpen their minds, and determine a vocation — not a place to engage in a debate over social justice issues and political correctness.

Last year, Nicolas Meriwether, a philosophy professor at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio, was teaching a transgender student. The student was male but identified as female and wanted to be addressed as "ma'am" instead of "sir." Meriwether offered a very reasonable compromise: He suggested calling the student by his name rather than agree to address him by an inaccurate pronoun.

According to the Kansas City Star , the student threatened to have Meriwether fired if he refused and went on to alert school officials. University officials told the professor he had to use transgender pronouns and said he had created a "hostile environment" for the distressed student. While Meriwether has not yet been fired, he did sue officials from the university. Now the professor is seeking damages, claiming his First Amendment rights were violated.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, who is representing Meriwether, said in the suit:



They demand this even though the concept of gender identity is entirely subjective and fluid, even though the number of potential gender identities is infinite (with over one hundred different options currently available), and even though the number of potential pronouns has likewise multiplied in recent years — all for the purpose of lending credence to cultural ideas Dr. Meriwether does not share or wish to advance.



Of course, the university claims it is trying to respect its professor's deep-rooted religious beliefs and every student's right to equal treatment, but so far it does not appear that has actually materialized. This isn’t just about a pronoun; this is about endorsing an ideology. "The university favors certain beliefs, and it wants to force Meriwether to cry uncle and endorse them as well,” Tyson Langhofer, director of ADF’s Center for Academic Freedom, said in a press release. “That’s neither legal nor constitutional, and neither was the process the university has used to get to this point. We are asking the court to order the university to respect Dr. Meriwether’s freedoms.”

This issue, particularly among universities, has been escalating for the last few years. It was the original issue that propelled Jordan Peterson to fame in the conservative marketplace of ideas. He too originally protested legislation, while teaching in his native Canada, that forced people to call students by their transgender pronouns. For this he was ostracized and scorned (then skyrocketed to fame here in America for other ideas).

Both Peterson and Meriwether are right: No one should be compelled to utilize particular speech, particularly speech that defies all logic, biology, and common sense — not in government, not in a court, and definitely not in college. That’s the very place where students are supposed to sharpen their ideas about the world, not waste their time worrying about their feelings, or doing the bidding of social justice warriors and leftists consumed with being politically correct.

Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.