“Being a coward is a sin.”
Jessica Tapia remembers those convicting words from one of the very first sermons she ever heard from her pastor. Unbeknownst to her, she would soon be asked to dramatically live them out…
Her story centers around Jurupa Valley High School in California, situated in a young, growing, predominantly Hispanic community about 50 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Jessica had actually graduated from JVHS in 2010, where her faith grew significantly through a Bible study organized by her swim coach. She began working for the Jurupa Unified School District in 2014 and then, in 2021, landed her “dream teaching position” as a PE teacher at the very high school where she attended and thrived. Unfortunately, despite the fact that she was a beloved, tenured teacher, her dream position was short-lived.
Like many believers in what we Californians call the “Inland Empire” (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties), Jessica worshipped at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills during the coronavirus pandemic. Led by Pastor Jack Hibbs, CCCH reopened for in-person services in May of 2020 and never closed again, despite legal pressure from state and local governments. Most other Southern California churches remained closed well into 2021. Already a church with over 10,000 attending on weekends, thousands more believers like Jessica flocked to the church during the pandemic, desperate for in-person connection.
Pastor Hibb’s example and exhortation to courageously stand against unjust authority came into focus for Jessica two days before the end of the 2021-22 school year, when she suddenly began seeing hostile comments by JVHS students on her Instagram posts, criticizing her conservative Christian views on issues like gender and sexuality.
The next day, she was abruptly removed from her third-period class, placed on paid leave, and ordered off campus immediately. Her administrators communicated that getting her off campus was “for her own safety”—seemingly suggesting that her expressed personal opinions on social media were so triggering that students may resort to violence should she remain in school.
Needless to say, Jessica was shocked.
“I was essentially told that I was now unsafe on this campus that was my second home for so many years as a student, athlete, coach, lifeguard, teacher…all the things,” she shares.
Jessica waited through the summer of 2022, hoping the matter might resolve.
But just before the start of the school year, the district called her in for a meeting. They presented screenshots of her social media posts and issued a “Notice of Unprofessional Conduct,” listing about a dozen specific allegations. In summary, according to district officials, students felt “disrespected and discriminated against” by Jessica.
Here’s the crazy part: only one allegation against her stemmed from an interaction with a student at school—a student had overheard her playing Christian content on her phone during “Monday Run Day” around the track. The dispersed students were allowed to listen to whatever they wanted on their devices, and she was simply doing the same. Truthfully, the case against her was nearly entirely based on her social media posts—expression protected by the First Amendment.
During this meeting with the school district, it became clear to Jessica that something bigger was going on, and a firm conviction began to take root within her.
She shares, “This was the moment I felt like the Lord told me, ‘This is spiritual warfare; stand firm.’”
Jessica did her best to respond to the allegations, but the district placed her back on leave.
In late September, they called her in again and issued her a “Plan of Assistance and Directives,” which required her to:
- Refer to students by their preferred pronouns (even if they differ from biological reality or official records).
- Allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity, including permitting a biological male into the girls’ locker room that she supervised.
- Refrain from online posting about God or the Bible to avoid offending students again.
As if the hubris of a school district in assuming the power to regulate a teacher’s personal religious speech was not enough, Jessica adds that there was one more directive that they did not (or would not) put in writing. Instead, they told her that she would also have to withhold information about students’ gender identity from parents.
Jessica was shocked.
She states, “That’s when I looked them dead in the eye and said, ‘Are you asking me to lie to parents?’”
“Yes, for their safety and privacy,” was the blunt response from the district.
Jessica was then informed she would be placed on a “45-day watch” to ensure compliance. She recalls, “I felt like I was the one being discriminated against.”
Indeed, she was.
The stress of returning to work the following Monday under these impossible circumstances was too much for Jessica. She took personal stress leave to pray, fast, seek the Lord, and figure out her next steps.
While sitting in solitude at home early one morning, a haunting irony began to dawn on her—she was being reprimanded for a perceived lack of compliance with the district’s gender policies. Her attorney (retained months later), Julianne Fleischer, put it this way during a Jack Hibbs podcast episode titled “Teachers Don’t Lie”: “No student had ever asked her to refer to them by different pronouns. These were a lot of hypothetical situations.” In other words, Jessica was being disciplined for a mythical offense against a non-existent student.
During my interview with Jessica, as she recounted this part of the story, we lamented that she had not been a member of Christian Educators at the time of this experience. Had she been a member, we could have connected her with legal counsel right away to advise her and confront the illegal religious discrimination she was experiencing at the hands of the district. Instead, she faced this stressful ordeal, including the district’s inquiries, alone.
At that point, Jessica says the reality of the situation was becoming very clear—she had three options. First, follow the district’s directives and save her salary, continuing to provide for her very young children. Second, she could quietly resign, tacitly accepting the idea that Christians really can’t be public school educators, at least not in California. The final option was to stand and fight. But at the time, Jessica did not have a clear vision for how. Reluctantly, she began writing a resignation letter.
However, before she could finish writing the letter, the Lord connected her with a somewhat random couple through social media who provided prayer, encouragement, and solid legal advice.
She describes her interactions with Matthew and Bethany from Washington as a divine appointment and a key turning point for her. They shared with Jessica what they believed to be a Holy Spirit-inspired picture of her “speaking on a stage to thousands”—something that would indeed happen later.
And then, Matthew gave her the pivotal advice: “Jessica, if you quit, then that’s it. There’s no lawsuit. There’s no seeking justice for what they did.”
Jessica then knew she needed to stand up to the injustice. Confident that God was calling her to this, she gathered her courage and sent a fateful email to the district, refusing to comply with several of the directives:
- She would not lie to kids about their identity.
- She would not lie to parents about their kids.
- She would answer students honestly if they asked about her faith—without proselytizing.
She describes this as her “full surrender moment,” referencing the biblical example of Esther, who resolved to go before the king under penalty of death in Esther 4:16. “When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish” (NIV).
Her district interpreted her refusal as a request for a religious accommodation. The meeting to discuss it was, according to Jessica, “the most bizarre experience of my life.”
The district lawyer showed up with two pages of prepared questions, asking Jessica what church she attends, her personal reading and Bible study habits, and what principles of her faith prevent her from complying. The lawyer even resorted to gaslighting Jessica, saying, “Isn’t your faith against violence? Because not respecting a student’s identity is violence!”
Following this meeting, the district provided a clear response. They would not accommodate her faith. She was being terminated.
Jessica recalls her thoughts when she received the news: “What country are we in again? Did I just get fired for being a Christian?”
It was then that Jessica posted an Instagram video explaining her situation. The video went viral, and help came in the form of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a public-interest law firm specializing in defending Christians in First Amendment cases.
Jessica and her AF&F legal team filed a lawsuit. Almost exactly one year later, in May 2024, they announced a stunning settlement: JUSD agreed to pay Jessica and her team $360,000. Her portion of the settlement was over three times the amount of pay she was owed.
During the“Teachers Don’t Lie” podcast episode recorded shortly after the settlement, Jessica shared with pastor Hibbs, “The second I said yes to that [the settlement amount], I felt like the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, ‘360 is symbolic of a complete turnaround.’”
After the settlement, Jessica says the district did their own 360, parting ways with the attorney who had essentially accused her of violence toward students.
While her settlement does not carry the weight of a court ruling, it does serve as a warning to public school districts across the nation to respect the religious rights of their faculty—and an encouragement for Christian educators to seek religious accommodations when they feel their rights are being violated. Based on later conversations with district leaders, Jessica believes they fired her because they were afraid of being sued by students if they didn’t. If true, they should have paid more attention to the rights actually guaranteed in the Constitution, not make-believe rights about gender identity.
Reflecting on the entire process, Jessica explained in the podcast that she experienced tremendous spiritual growth throughout the ordeal. “It’s something that I want to scream to the world—even if you see yourself walking into some kind of suffering or persecution—go forth with Him, and what you will find on the other side of walking in faith; there aren’t even words for. The different ways I’ve gotten to see the Lord and get closer to Him—His protection, His provision, His blessings…it’s so much!”
She also shared that following the settlement, she asked the Lord, “What would life look like right now if I hadn’t obeyed You and I had just saved my salary?” And she firmly believes she heard His response: “I still would have loved you; I just couldn’t have used you the way I am right now.”
During our interview, she told me she has a new life verse—Isaiah 48:10: “See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” As far as life verses go, it’s not one most of us would choose, but she quoted it for me with glowing excitement. I could sense in her spirit the humble satisfaction of one who has been tested and found faithful.
“What I’ve gone through has really changed the way that I look at trials now…I see them more now as potential opportunities for me to continue to be refined and be used by the Lord,” she says.
Yes, I would say her faith has grown!
And God is still using her, even though she misses impacting young lives in a public school setting. She is homeschooling her three young children while serving as a public relations advocate for Advocates for Faith & Freedom. She has shared her story on Fox News, Newsmax, “The Charlie Kirk Show,” and in documentaries such as “22 Words,” “The War on Children,” and “Identity Crisis.”
She recently launched Teachers Don’t Lie, an outreach ministry of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, offering resources to help educators legally stand up to the darkness in our public schools. In the podcast, she explains the heart behind the effort: teachers “don’t need to lie to students, they don’t need to lie to parents, and they most certainly don’t need to lie to themselves about their convictions.”
Since Jessica’s settlement, other educators have found vindication and been rewarded in similar payouts:
- September, 2024: The West Point School Board in Virginia agreed to pay Peter Vlaming $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees after he was fired for avoiding the use of transgender pronouns. The district also agreed to clear his record and adjust its policies. [Read more about Peter Vlaming’s story in the 2020 Back to School article “Gender Pronouns: Navigating a Difficult Landscape.”]
- November 2025: Two Oregon teachers—Rachel Sager and Katie Medart—reached a $650,000 settlement with the Grants Pass School District after being fired for publicly opposing policies that allowed students to access bathrooms and locker rooms based on gender identity rather than biological sex.
- March 2026: Indiana music teacher John Kluge received a $650,000 settlement from Brownsburg Community School Corporation after he was forced out for refusing to use students’ preferred names and pronouns contrary to his Christian convictions.
These cases send a clear message: school districts that trample on teachers’ sincerely held religious beliefs and constitutional rights do so at considerable financial risk. Of course, the downside is that all of these educators lost their jobs and the influence they had for Christ in their classrooms. We all admire their courage, and God may call some of us to follow their example. But is there another option?
Thankfully, the stands taken by these brave educators may have laid a foundation upon which the rest of us can remain as ambassadors for Christ in our public schools, even in states and districts with radical gender policies.
An additional legal source of hope can be found in the case of two other courageous educators from California: Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West. The United States Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in their favor in March, declaring that policies that hide gender transitions from parents are likely unconstitutional. While their case, Mirabelli v. Oslon, still awaits a definitive ruling, it foreshadows future relief for Christian educators trapped by these outrageous school policies that require them to lie to parents.
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While I certainly hope no more Christian educators will be called to lay down their careers during this critical struggle, that hope is likely overly optimistic—others will likely lose their jobs. But with gratitude for the sacrifice of Jessica and these other educators, I pray that the Lord will fill the rest of us with similar courage and a hope firmly set on Him.
