Marisol Arroyo-Castro has legal representation and is demanding to be reinstated in the school where she’s taught for more than 20 years.
Like many Christians, Marisol Arroyo-Castro surrounds herself with images of the cross to provide regular reminders of her relationship with God and to help her through the day.
She has crosses and crucifixes hanging in her living room, in her bedroom, and in the entrance to her home. And for a decade, the seventh-grade teacher at Connecticut’s DiLoreto Elementary & Middle School has had a crucifix hanging near her desk at work.
She would reflect on the cross in good times and particularly in hard times, she told National Review. “When something happened that was negative or made me almost want to cry, I would go to the cross,” said Castro, a Catholic and grandmother of five.
“Having it in my classroom was just natural to me. It was like having a picture of my son or daughter,” she said. “It represented me, it represented who I am. And more than that, it represented my spirit, my soul, which is going to God eventually.”
Now, after more than 20 years with the New Britain school district, Castro has been booted from her classroom because she refused to remove the crucifix from her wall last month.
After receiving a complaint from another district employee, the district directed her to either remove the crucifix completely or to put it out of sight — in her desk drawer or underneath her desk, by her feet, she said. The district’s superintendent, Tony Gasper, alleges in an email that having the crucifix visible near Castro’s desk “infringes on the religious freedoms of our diverse student population” and “violates both federal and state laws requiring public schools to remain neutral in religious matters.”
That’s nonsense, said Keisha Russell, a lawyer with the First Liberty Institute, a public interest law firm that defends religious freedom.
“What the First Amendment requires is [religious] neutrality,” said Russell. “This is hostility.”
On Tuesday, First Liberty and the WilmerHale law firm sent a letter to the New Britain school district demanding that Castro be reinstated to her teaching job and that she once again be allowed to hang her crucifix in the same location “as other teachers are permitted to do with their personally significant items.”
“If the school district can prevent her from hanging an item like this on the wall, their next step is to say you can’t wear a cross necklace, you can’t wear a hijab, you can’t wear a yarmulke, like any public display of religious expression will be forbidden after that,” Russell said. “This is not just about Marisol’s crucifix. This is about any government employee, this is about the government being able to tell you you cannot even be yourself when you’re at work, because you work for us, and we own you.”
The Connecticut case is the latest effort by supporters of religious liberty to fight efforts to banish religion and religious imagery from public spaces, including government schools. The Supreme Court has ruled for decades that public schools can’t discriminate against religion, including in 2022, when the Court in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District ruled that a Washington State school district couldn’t bar a football coach from praying with players on the field after games. The district said he could pray only in a private location.
The First Liberty letter notes several similarities between Castro’s case and the coach’s, though the district says their situation is different because Castro has a “captive audience.”
Castro has been a teacher for 30 years and employed at DiLoreto since 2003, according to the First Liberty letter. She has regularly received “proficient” or “exemplary” evaluations, including in 2024, when she held her class to “high expectations,” the letter said.
Castro told National Review she’s had the crucifix in question on her wall for a decade, though she changed classrooms this year to teach seventh grade social studies. A photo provided by First Liberty shows the crucifix hanging next to Castro’s desk, at about elbow level when she is sitting down, surrounded by a calendar and children’s artwork.
Concerns about the crucifix appear to have surfaced in late November when school leaders received an email from what appears to be another employee, who claimed to be a “parent of Jewish children” who has suffered from “religious trauma.” In the email, which National Review obtained through a public records request, the employee — whose name has been redacted — also alleges that Castro was “making religious references in class.”
“I’m concerned because this is a violation between the separation between church and state,” the email says. “Secondly, I’m not a Christian and it does make me uncomfortable she keeps a cross up in her room when shouldn’t have religious items at school unless it’s related to the curriculum. Also, we have students that are not Christian and they have voiced that they are not comfortable with being told about needing Jesus.”
In early December, Castro’s supervisor, assistant principal Andrew Mazzei, requested a meeting with her. In a Friday meeting she was instructed to take down the crucifix by Monday morning. Mazzei said he would stop by the classroom at 8 a.m. that Monday to ensure she had complied.
Castro did not comply.
The next day, she was called to another meeting with principal Dario Soto and other school officials. During the meeting, Maryellen Manning, the district’s chief of staff for relations and accountability, told Castro that “the District would never tell her exactly how to pray and to whom” but suggested that “Castro put the crucifix in a desk drawer, only to be pulled out when Ms. Castro wished to ‘ground herself,’” according to the letter.
“Mr. Soto stated that Christians are to worship no idols and asked if she wanted to stay true to that as a Christian,” the letter adds. In a compromise, “Manning told her to hide the crucifix underneath her desk, by her feet,” according to the letter.
“I wanted to give them what they wanted. I wanted them to be happy. So, I said, ‘Okay, I’ll move it,’” Castro told National Review. “When I picked it up in my hand and I was about to move it, I felt really guilty. I felt like I was sinning. I felt like I had to go to confession.”
“I started to cry,” she said. “And I was telling myself, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry. Whatever you do, don’t cry.’ I couldn’t help it, and I started to cry.”
When Castro informed school leaders that she wouldn’t remove the cross, she was reprimanded for being “insubordinate.” In mid-December, Castro arrived in her classroom and found that someone had removed the crucifix.
In a meeting, “Ms. Manning told her that a few days without pay would help her better ‘reflect’ on whether it was in her ‘best interest’ to keep hanging the crucifix on the wall,” the First Liberty letter says. She was suspended for two days without pay, it says, “and sent home with her crucifix in a box.”
Castro is now on paid administrative leave. “We are aware, however, that Ms. Castro has been pressured to resign or retire early and sign an agreement not to sue the District,” the letter says. “We are additionally aware that the District has threatened to terminate Ms. Castro unless she agrees to conceal the crucifix underneath her desk or in a similarly hidden place.”
First Liberty lawyers say that allowing teachers to display religious items in their workspaces does not violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause. The district, they say, is relying on “bad law that was long-outdated” even before the Kennedy case. They say the district is violating Castro’s free-speech and religious rights.
“The government has to respect the free-exercise rights of their teachers, their religious expression,” Russell said. “That includes when students can see them. Because there is nothing in the Constitution that says that students aren’t allowed to see something religious. Obviously, that would be crazy. And there is nothing in the Constitution that forbids a teacher from making it known what she believes.”
In the space where Castro had her crucifix, other teachers have secular items, including pictures of Wonder Woman, baby Yoda, Santa Claus, and New England Patriots football pennants, according to the First Liberty letter. In the Kennedy case and others, the Supreme Court “has made clear that religious expression does not take second-class status compared to secular speech,” the letter states.
Gasper, the superintendent, said it is problematic that Castro has a crucifix “prominently” displayed “on the front wall of her public-school classroom.” The district is also accusing her of using religious language in class, including telling students they “need Jesus,” and using words like “Poppa God” and “sinner.” Gasper denied that Castro was ever threatened.
“We will not allow any teacher to use their position of authority to impose their personal religious beliefs or infringe on the civil rights of our students,” Gasper said in his emailed statement. “Our commitment is to ensure a learning environment where all students and staff feel respected and valued, regardless of their faith or beliefs.”
Russell denied that school officials ever raised concerns with Castro about using religious language in class in their written correspondence with her or in recorded conversations. She accused district leaders of being “bullies” who are “trying to save face.”
“And now that they’re being outed, they’re trying to make it seem like Marisol is the problem, and she’s not,” Russell said.
“Marisol’s private religious expression is protected, no matter what,” Russell said. “It doesn’t matter if other people don’t like it. It doesn’t matter if the principal doesn’t like it. It doesn’t matter if the governor of Connecticut doesn’t like it. She is allowed to have it. It’s her Constitutional right to have that cross there.”