Transgender titles meet the 1st amendment
A professor addressed a transgender student as Mr.
The transgender student wants to be addressed as Ms.
University policy says that the professor is required to use the pronoun or the title that the individual student prefers.
The professor on the other hand, has a religious belief. He believes that God created male and female and that those cannot be changed and that he has to follow that when he's teaching in class.
Eventually the University reprimanded him and told him that there would be more discipline coming if he continued to violate University policy. Now, the 6th Circuit came in and said, hey, this prof has a free speech right to do this – which I think is just totally wrong. They also said that the University violated his free exercise of religion, which I think is probably correct. Meriwether v. Hartop (6th Cir 03/26/2021) [PDF]
On the Free Speech part, there's the Garcetti case from the US Supreme Court, which basically says to public employees: If you're speaking out as a citizen you have free speech rights, but if you're speaking pursuant to your official duties as an employee, you do not have speech rights. And the 6th Circuit just basically turned that upside down and said, Oh, well, his speaking in class is the heart of his duties and therefore he has free speech rights. I think that's just totally wrong.
On the other hand, on the free exercise part, the University clearly was hostile to his religion. In fact, there was a Provost at the University who actually laughed during one of the hearings — laughed at his religious belief.
So this case is half right and half wrong. In any event, the 6th Circuit has sent it back for a trial.