After working for Georgia Southern University for nearly a decade, an employee was fired last summer for raising concerns about the university’s unwillingness to apply for a grant to fund gender-affirming care.
This week, the University of Georgia Board of Regents and the Statesboro-based campus agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a wrongful termination suit by Gemma Skuraton that illustrates the tensions at state institutions between advocates of diversity and changing state laws regarding Civil Rights.
“This was a young woman who needed someone to fight on her behalf. She deserved a champion,” said Artur Davis from HKM Employment Attorneys, who represented Skuraton in the suit, which cited First Amendment violations.
Skuraton was hired as a health promotion coordinator at Georgia Southern in 2016, primarily on the university’s Armstrong campus, and was promoted to Director of Student Wellness and Health Promotion in 2020. She previously served as interim board president of Mary’s Place, a rape crisis center in Savannah, and president of the Georgia Society for Public Health Education.
Part of Skuraton’s campus job was engaging with LGBTQ groups and students. That got tougher, however, after Georgia’s Republican-led legislature and politicians passed laws that targeted members of the state’s queer and trans communities, according to the lawsuit.
During the 2024 presidential election campaign, Georgia Southern took proactive steps to remove symbols of LGBTQ political and social movements, the court documents said.
“The Pride Flag was removed from the GS student counseling center, and postings on the student service website promoting resources for LGBT students were noticeably removed,” according to the lawsuit. “In May 2024, Gender Affirming Healthcare posters at university buildings were taken down; these posters advertised counseling and medical services including hormone therapy for gender transition,” the suit said.
On July 1, 2025, Shay Little, Georgia Southern’s Vice President for Student Affairs, told Skuraton that she was being terminated due to a history of criticism of her leadership style, the suit said. That was the same day a new law, Georgia Senate Bill 1, came into force that prohibited high school and college athletes from participating in team sports on teams that do not match their sex assigned at birth.
Earlier that summer, Little and Skuraton had clashed over Little’s decision to reject a grant application Skuraton helped write to provide free chest binders to students.
The administrator alluded to new state law as one of the reasons the university would not support the application.
Skuraton argued that failing to fund the grant could violate the federal law known as Title IX, but Little said Georgia Southern’s legal counsel supported her decision.
Little had previously endorsed access to free chest binders, which can be used by gender transitioning individuals experiencing gender dysphoria.
Davis, Skuraton’s lawyer, said the settlement is part of an uptick in wrongful-termination cases in higher education.
“This case was LGBTQ. Next week it will be someone fighting for Black people. In a month, it will be someone fighting for immigrants. After that it will be someone fighting for Jewish people,” said Davis, a former U.S. Congressman from Alabama who returned to employment law in 2020.
Skuraton has started a new job as Statewide Director for Underserved Communities at Georgia Network To End Assault, according to her LinkedIn profile. She did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
