Augsburg fires choir professor because she’s gay, lawsuit alleges

*Disclaimer: Lawsuit complaints are based off one side’s interpretation of events. They should not be considered 100% factual by the public as they are only accusations. Many lawsuits end without a trial or an admittance of guilt by any parties listed in the complaint. Any accusations in the below story come from court documents unless expressly noted.*

MINNEAPOLIS – A former choir professor says that Augsburg University and its president fired her after conservative donors complained about a “publicly avowed lesbian,” running the college’s choir.

Kristina Boerger, who has decades of experience directing choirs in a school setting, alleges in her lawsuit filed Oct. 10, that the university and its president, Paul Pribbenow, engaged in a years long harassment campaign against Boerger, eventually replacing her with a younger, white, heterosexual male with Protestant church choir experience.

Lawyers listed in court documents for the school and Boerger did not respond to requests for comments before this story was published.

Boerger was hired by Augsburg in 2018 as part of the John N. Schwartz Endowed Choral Professorship, created by donations from Augsburg alumni John Schwartz, a progressive gay man.

The purpose of the endowment was to create a new choral program at Augsburg that “sought to combine music reflective of a plurastic society, superior choral performance standards, and the University’s commitment to civic engagement and inclusion,” according to Boerger’s complaint against the school.

She was the only one out of over a hundred applicants that received an interview for the position and she received Schwartz’s approval. Her background includes directing choirs at various national and international events like performing at the White House during Barrack Obama’s administration.

“Ultimately, Augsburg used Dr. Boerger and her progressive identity to appease a highly influential donor, secure substantial funding, and then discarded her once such funding was secured and could be retained without her,” Boerger wrote in her complaint.

As part of her accepting the position, she was given tenure due to the potential controversial nature of the program and because she planned to finish out her teaching career at Augsburg.

However, over the seven years she served Augsburg students, Boerger received cricism from school administrators regarding complaints from conservative donors that pushed for the choir to return to its Lutheran roots and for an openly gay woman not to serve in the position.

Augsburg administrators, including Augsburg President Pribbenow and Provost Paula O’Loughlin, criticized Boerger’s performance in her position, which included O’Loughlin asking Boerger “Where’s the Lutheranism?” during her first meeting with Boerger.

O’Loughlin also insisted the choir program should look the same as it did in the 1960s, despite Boerger’s job being to reinvent the program.

“Yet, (administrators) kept her in the Endowed Chair Professorship because they needed her in the role to secure additional donations from Mr. Schwartz, who continually praised Dr. Boerger’s performance,” Boerger wrote in her complaint.

That was, until Schwartz died in 2024.

Following his death, school administrators rewrote Boerger’s contract, which cut her salary and tripled her teaching load.

Eventually the school kicked Boerger out of the professorship she was hired for and replaced her with a man more in line with the vision of the university’s conservative donor class.

The university described Boerger’s termination as a “resignation,” after she “asserted her right to be restored to her Endowed Choral Professorship,” Boerger wrote in her complaint.

School administrators waited until Boerger threatened legal action to give her any examples for why she was being fired, which included three-year-old student complaints that never resulted in discipline against her, complaints about portions of a choir concert she was not a part of and because the school’s conservative donors threatened to withhold monetary support if a gay woman remained in the endowed professorship.

Boerger points to the donor discontent as an example that the university’s actions were discriminatory.

“It demonstrates that maintaining a secular, progressive lesbian woman as the leader of the choral program was a central reason for the termination,” she wrote in her complaint

Augsburg has yet to file a response to Boerger’s lawsuit and no court dates has been set.

The case has been assigned to Judge Thomas Conley.