Michael Karlis
Attorneys representing fired instructor Johnson Varkey said they reached a settlement with the Alamo Colleges District this week.
An instructor at St. Philip's College who claimed he was fired last summer for teaching that X and Y chromosomes are the sole determinate of a person's sex now says via a statement from his attorneys that he's been rehired.
Adjunct professor Johnson Varkey grabbed right-wing media headlines last summer when he alleged the Alamo Colleges District canned him for teaching "standard principles about human biology and reproduction." Varkey hired a self-described Christian conservative law firm that argued he'd been terminated for his religious beliefs.
However, in Varkey's termination letter, Alamo Colleges accused the prof of making anti-LGBTQ+ comments, participating in "misogynistic banter" and engaging in other inappropriate classroom behavior.
On Tuesday, the Liberty Institute — Varkey's Plano-based law firm — said Alamo Colleges reached a settlement to reinstate the instructor after he filed a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Varkey will return to the classroom for the fall 2024 semester, the firm added in its emailed statement.
In an emailed statement, an Alamo Colleges spokesperson confirmed it had reinstated Varkey but offered no additional comment.
"We are happy that the Alamo Community College voluntarily reinstated Dr. Varkey," Liberty Institue Associate Counsel Kayla Toney said in the firm's statement. "He is excited by this outcome, and we are glad that [Alamo Colleges District] did the right thing. Dr. Varkey looks forward to continuing to educate students at ACCD."
In a letter sent to Alamo Colleges shortly after his dismissal, Varkey's attorneys described him as a "devout Christian" who believes that "one should not attempt to erase or alter his or her sex" and that "absent of a compelling reason, one should not sterilize oneself." However, the lawyers said Varkey never shared those views during lectures.
"As far as I know, it was just one lecture on Nov. 28," Liberty Institute's Toney told the Current last summer. "That was the day he covered the entire unit on human reproduction, and a handful of students walked out of his class when he stated — in accordance with what the textbook said — that biological sex is determined by X and Y chromosomes."
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