Re: her legal claims, her first and second causes of actions rely heavily on the following two claims:
- When Ms. Ricard communicated her views regarding transgenderism through her use of a student’s legal/enrolled of salutation and name in her interactions with the students and in her classroom, she was speaking on a matter of public concern, engaging in speech related to teaching and scholarship, and engaging in expression the First Amendment protects.
- Ms. Ricard’s interest, as a teacher at a public District, in discussing matters of public concern in the context of teaching and scholarship outweighs Defendants’ interest in the efficient provision of services.
I read the above as claiming Ms. Ricard’s interest in communicating her position on transgenderism outweighs the school’s interest in efficient teaching of mathematics by having teachers address their students by name, in class. 
The third cause of action (forcing her to use pronouns will give students the impression she accepts transgender identities as valid) is well-formed although she should lose on the merits (it doesn’t violate her rights). I think Garcetti v. Ceballos controls here, in that when she calls a student by name or pronoun in the classroom, that is something she said pursuant to the duties of her employment (not protected), and not a statement by a private citizen on an issue of public importance (protected).
If she wrote an op-ed on her own time about how transgender men are really women, the school couldn’t discipline her for that. If she misgenders students while she’s on the clock, that’s fair game for disciplinary action. Even if you go by the dissents in Garcetti, you would still need a balancing test and I think the State would win that test. See above.
Calling students by name is a necessary function of classroom education. Nobody would argue that the state is powerless to require teachers to address students by Mr. X or Ms. Y, as a matter of convention opposed to first names or nicknames. Just as nobody argues when the state requires students to address teachers the same way (even if this is uncommon nowadays). How you address people in the workplace is a customary part of any job. The students are a captive audience, assembled by the state, and while the teacher may have a right to express her religious beliefs to the public about transgender identities, the teacher has no special right to use that audience to do so. This is before getting into how misgendering harms students and suicide rates &etc.
The fourth cause of action is unsubstantiated, specifically these three points:
- Defendants’ District Policies and related practices are neither neutral nor generally applicable but allow Defendants to target religious expression and activities specifically and to express hostility to such expression.
- Defendants’ District Policies and related practices are neither neutral nor generally applicable because they represent a system of individualized assessments.
- Defendants’ District Policies and related practices are underinclusive, prohibiting some expression while leaving unprohibited other expression equally harmful to the District’s asserted interests.
The fifth cause of action is well-formed but she should lose on the merits.
- Defendants’ District Policies and their enforcement of those policies impose an unconstitutional condition upon teachers’ right to free speech and their receipt of state benefits (e.g., avoiding disciplinary actions up to and including termination, remaining a teacher at a public school).
The unconstitutional condition doctrine stops when the condition is necessary to get the job done. If the school can show that addressing students by preferred name and pronouns in the classroom is part of the job, which I think is obviously the case, the school wins.
The sixth cause of action, on due process, I think she may actually prevail on a couple points. Not all, just these two:
- Defendants’ District Policies at the time Ms. Ricard was subject to discipline did not include Board-approved or official policies specific to the use of students’ preferred names or pronouns.
- Informal directives provided by then-Principal Molt and Counselor Lubbers regarding Student 1’s preferred alternative first name did not state that Ms. Ricard was prohibited from continuing to use Student 1’s legal/enrolled last name.
The remedy might be removing the 3-day suspension from her record or it may be a Mt. Heathy test. But I haven’t seen the other side.
These points are particularly BS:
- Defendants’ District Policies and related practices are unconstitutionally vague because they grant District officials unbridled discretion in deciding what constitutes “gender identity” and “gender identity discrimination,” because they utilize terms that are inherently subjective and elude any precise or objective definition that would be consistent from one official, teacher, or student to another, because they are incapable of providing meaningful guidance to Defendants and other District officials, and because they force teachers to guess whether expression that the First Amendment protects is in fact allowed at school.
- The lack of objective criteria, factors, or standards in Defendants’ District Policies and related practices, including the lack of notice of evolving policies and the unequal treatment of Ms. Ricard and other similarly situated staff, renders these policies and practices unconstitutionally vague and in violation of Ms. Ricard’s right to due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment.
When a school administrator directly tells you to refer to a student by a specific name, and there is a policy saying they can/will do so and you can/will comply, that is the opposite of vague, subjective, elusive, and imprecise. Just write a note on your attendance clipboard and get on with your lessons.
The seventh cause of action, is as of yet baseless. Where are the names, dates, descriptions, etc?
- By punishing and threatening to punish Ms. Ricard for using a student’s last name as listed in the Skyward school records system instead of the preferred alternate first name of the student when they have since chosen not punish other teachers for using the last name of a student in other circumstances, Defendants have violated and are violating Ms. Ricard’s right to equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment.
[…]
- Defendants have chosen to take no disciplinary action against teachers who support and endorse the concepts of fluid gender identity, but they take disciplinary action against a teacher like Ms. Ricard who refuses to endorse those concepts.
- Defendants take no disciplinary action against teachers who use a student’s last name as listed in the Skyward school records system instead of the preferred alternate first name of the student when that teacher has not previously expressed views regarding fluid gender identity, but they have taken disciplinary action against Ms. Ricard whose views on the topic have become known to the District and Defendants.
- After taking disciplinary action against Ms. Ricard for using a student’s legal last name instead of a student’s preferred alternative first name, Defendants have knowingly refrained from taking disciplinary action against other staff who have failed or forgotten to use students’ preferred names or pronouns.
- Defendants’ District Policies have also been applied to discriminate intentionally against Ms. Ricard’s rights […] Thus, discriminatory intent is presumed.
I expect the other side to deny that any such incidents, if they occurred at all, are comparable. And as doreen wrote it is disinginuous to throw in “failed or forgotten”, because disciplining someone who refuses to follow the name policy is not comparable to disciplining someone who forgot someone’s new preferred name.
~Max