Trey Paul, FISM News
[elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″]
A Christian physician assistant with an unblemished 17 years of service at the University of Michigan Health-West (UMH-West) is now suing her former employer after being fired for not supporting sex-reassignment surgeries, according to her lawsuit.
Valerie Kloosterman, a mother of four, says she sought a religious accommodation from not only referring patients for sex-changing procedures and experimental drugs but also from using transgender pronouns. She says all of that goes against her faith and violates her religious convictions.
“I’m heartbroken,” she told FOX News. “I had 17 years that I spent with patients and families, coworkers who sometimes I spent more time with than I did with my own family. And they took that away. They took away the relationships that I had built up, and the people who trusted me for their care.”
Kloosterman says it all started last summer when she was forced to undergo “diversity and inclusion” training after she asked for a religious accommodation.
“Two of the questions that year were very specific in confirming that gender was fluid, and I had to select the box. It was not an option for me to state my concerns, and I could not complete this mandatory test without answering that question the way they wanted me to based on the university’s belief, and so I raised my concerns,” she said.
During follow-up meetings, she says a Michigan Health diversity representative called her “evil,” blamed her for gender dysphoria-related suicides, and told her she could not take the Bible or her religious beliefs to work with her. Less than a month later, she says she was fired.
According to the court filing, Kloosterman’s termination letter listed three reasons for her firing, ‘all of which directly related to her sincerely held religious beliefs about gender identity and to her conscientious objection to assisting in the provision of certain ‘gender reassignment’ drugs and procedures.
“It was over something that could have easily been accommodated based on the University of Michigan’s focus on being inclusive,” Kloosterman said.
The First Liberty Institute is representing Kloosterman. Her attorneys sent a letter to UMH-West last month demanding her reinstatement, and they filed a suit against the nonprofit health system on Oct. 11 after it failed to respond.
“Because Valerie wouldn’t violate her conscience, Michigan Health violated her rights and ended her employment.” — FLI Lawyer Kayla Toney
We are representing Valerie Kloosterman. Read the news release: https://t.co/BuEfn7Bz8S— First Liberty Institute (@1stLiberty) October 12, 2022
“Because Valerie wouldn’t violate her conscience, Michigan Health violated her rights and ended her employment,” said Kayla Toney, Counsel for First Liberty Institute.
It is blatantly intolerant of Michigan Health to demand that medical professionals like Valerie abandon their religious beliefs in order to remain employed. Valerie loves her community and her job. She is devastated that the University of Michigan health system derided her beliefs and demanded that she choose between her faith and providing health care.
First Liberty argues that Michigan Health violated Kloosterman’s First Amendment and 14th Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion and freedom of speech. In the lawsuit, attorneys state,
Defendants targeted Ms. Kloosterman for termination because she requested an accommodation for her religious beliefs. Defendants also violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, as incorporated against the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, when they granted secular accommodations to other employees regarding common drugs and medical procedures while failing to grant a religious accommodation to Ms. Kloosterman regarding much more rare drugs and medical procedures.
Jordan Pratt, First Liberty senior counsel, told FOX News that “the reason why we took this case is there was a real injustice that was committed here.” He added: “We have an extremely conscientious, caring, diligent health care worker who has served for 17 years, and her mother and her grandmother before her served in the same [University of Michigan] health care system.”
When asked about the lawsuit, a UMH-West spokesperson said: “University of Michigan Health-West is committed to providing appropriate medical treatment to all patients and respects the religious beliefs of its employees. We are confident Ms. Kloosterman’s claims, like those she filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, are without merit.”
This is not the first time FISM News has reported on Christians in the healthcare industry who have been faced with essentially denying their faith in order to keep their jobs.