Kentucky Teacher Claims He Was Fired For Coming Out As Bisexual

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Kentucky Teacher Claims He Was Fired For Coming Out As Bisexual

Last year, a middle school teacher in Kentucky was fired only a month after coming out as bisexual on his Instagram page. Now, Nicholas Breiner is bringing a federal discrimination lawsuit against the county’s Board of Education, according to reports from Think Progress.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Breiner, who was a teacher at McNabb Middle School, came out with his sexuality on Instagram because he wanted to support some of his LGBTQ students, who had expressed before that they were suicidal. He wrote on his Instagram post, “I felt that they needed to know there was someone in the room that understood and supported them, regardless of who they were. As terrifying as it was to admit, I had to value someone else’s well-being over my own privacy” He told Lexington Herald-Leader. He also revealed that he had “personally intervened on several suicide cases” and that a majority of these tragic cases were from LGBTQ students.

The fired educator filed a complaint to the U.S. District Court on May 3, and filed a suit similar to this against the board of education in Montgomery Circuit Court.

According to his complaint, Breiner was asked to meet with the Deputy Superintendent three days after he came out in social media, and he was allegedly questioned about his sexual orientation. He claims that after the meeting, he experienced “disparate terms of the condition of his employment, including but not limited to being called into unscheduled meetings, accused of violating policy not associated with the plaintiff, harassing phone calls during class and unfavorable evaluation.”

One month later, Nicholas Breiner was let go from his job. He was told by the middle school principal that this decision was only due to the fact that his contract was not renewed because of budget constraints. Montgomery County Superintendent Matthew Thompson told the Lexington Herald Leader last summer that Breiner was not let go because he was bisexual.