A Shawnee State University professor has settled for $400,000 in a lawsuit against his employer, arguing it was within his First Amendment rights to refuse using the preferred pronouns of a student who identifies as female.

Nicholas Meriwether, a Shawnee philosophy professor, was issued a written rebuke after a 2018 Title IX investigation into the situation, prompting the lawsuit, which was originally dismissed in February 2020, when a lower district court found there were no “broader societal concerns,” but revived by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.