A Michigan physician assistant (PA) who alleged she was fired after refusing to comply with hospital transgender policies because of her religious beliefs is receiving a $410,000 settlement in her wrongful termination lawsuit.
Valerie Kloosterman sued University of Michigan Health-West (UMHW) filed suit in 2022 after she was fired in August 2021, alleging the 200-bed suburban Grand Rapids teaching hospital was requiring her to go against her conscience as a Christian.
“All I wanted to do was provide the best care possible to my patients without being forced to violate my Christian beliefs,” Kloosterman said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
She was represented in the lawsuit by First Liberty Institute, which documented that Kloosterman had “received positive performance reviews throughout her employment before raising faith-based objections to mandatory gender identity training,” the news outlet reported.
The legal advocacy nonprofit reported she was terminated after requesting a religious accommodation from finishing training that “required her to affirm statements about gender identity that were in violation of her Christian faith.”
No effort was made to accommodate her, according to the institute which takes on civil rights cases to “reclaim religious freedom in America.”
According to Fox Digital’s report:
The lawsuit says University of Michigan Health-West officials called her to a meeting, where they disparaged her religious beliefs, called her “evil” and a “liar,” told her she could not bring her Christian beliefs into the workplace, and accused her of contributing to suicides among individuals with gender dysphoria.
The settlement also calls on the hospital to prevent such punitive behavior from happening again.
Under its terms, UMHW has agreed to formulate a religious accommodation policy that complies with the law, inform and train all employees, and give reasonable religious accommodations without retribution to those who request it, the institute said.
“This new policy ensures that providers of faith and employees at UMHW will receive religious accommodations so that they can provide excellent care consistent with their medical judgment, because all patients are created in the image of God,” Kloosterman said in her statement to Fox News Digital.
The PA’s lawsuit was not a frivolous pursuit, her attorney said, but based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination on several characteristics, including race and religion.
“Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating against and punishing employees for their faith,” Kayla Toney, counsel at First Liberty, said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital.
She continued, “Valerie is an exceptional physician assistant who cares for each of her patients. Employers cannot drive out people like Valerie just because of their sincere religious beliefs. We are grateful to have resolved this matter with University of Michigan Health-West.”
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Forever and Five Days, the true crime story of murders in a Grand Rapids nursing home plotted by a psychopathic nurse’s aide, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
