A Connecticut middle school teacher who was booted from her classroom for refusing to take down a crucifix she’s long displayed near her desk has sued school district leaders, accusing them of violating her rights to free speech and religious expression.
The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in U.S. District Court, accuses leaders of the Consolidated School District of New Britain of using the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which bars the government from establishing a religion, “as an excuse to abridge the free speech and religious free exercise rights” of teacher Marisol Arroyo-Castro.
Castro, a seventh-grade teacher at DiLoreto Elementary & Middle School, has been a district employee for more than 20 years and has hung the same crucifix near her desk in her classroom for a decade. The Catholic grandmother told National Review last month that she would reflect on the crucifix when things were going well in class and particularly when they weren’t, and that having it there “was just natural to me.”
But school leaders directed her to remove the crucifix after receiving a complaint from what appears to be another employee. Superintendent Tony Gasper claimed in an email that allowing Castro to keep the crucifix displayed near her 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.”
Castro, who refused to take down the cross, has been suspended for insubordination.
Her lawyers with the First Liberty Institute, a public interest law firm that defends religious freedom, and the WilmerHale law firm sent a letter to the district leaders last month demanding that Castro be reinstated and be allowed to continue displaying the crucifix by her desk. So far, they have declined to do so.
Keisha Russell, a First Liberty Institute lawyer, said they filed the suit last week after Castro “was basically blocked out of her email and accessing a lot of things that she could access while she was on paid leave. We felt like that was an indication that they were either going to fire her or further discipline her.”
Russell said they are requesting a restraining order against the district.
“It’s pretty clear,” Russell said, “that they are not going to acquiesce unless a court tells them they can’t do this anymore.”
In a statement to National Review on Monday, Gaspar said the district is “committed to upholding the Constitution, including the free exercise and free speech rights of all individuals, while also ensuring that our schools provide an environment that is inclusive and respectful of all students, staff, and community members.”
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, and several rulings over the last decade have made clear that schools and other government bodies can’t simply fall back on the establishment clause to prohibit religious expression on campus or in other public spaces.
In at least three recent cases — Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, and Carson v. Makin — the Court ruled the establishment clause doesn’t allow governments to deny public money to religious organizations and schools simply because they are religious. In Shurtleff v. Boston in 2022, the Court ruled that the city of Boston illegally discriminated against a Christian organization when it barred it from flying a Christian flag at city hall but allowed various secular groups to fly their flags.
Speaking at Catholic University in October, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the claim that the establishment clause requires government bodies to prohibit religious expression or funding is “a misreading of our history and tradition.”
“I think one of the principles that’s been reinforced and elaborated on is that discrimination against religion, against religious people, against religious speech, against religious organizations, is not required by the establishment clause — and is indeed prohibited by the free exercise clause and the equal protection clause,” Kavanaugh said.
First Liberty Institute has said the Connecticut crucifix case has many similarities to Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the 2022 case where the Court ruled that a Washington State school district couldn’t bar a football coach from praying with players on the field after games. The district had said the coach could only pray in a private location.
The Connecticut school district says the two cases are “substantially different” in “facts and context,” in part because Castro has a “captive audience” in her classroom.
Russell disagrees: The cases, she said, are “analogous because the [Kennedy] case is telling you that even though students can see religion, it doesn’t mean that they’re being coerced.”
Castro has been a teacher for 30 years and employed at DiLoreto since 2003, according to First Liberty. A photo included in the lawsuit shows the crucifix, about ten to twelve inches long, hanging next to Castro’s desk 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 have suffered from “religious trauma” in the past. The employee also alleged that Castro was “making religious references in class.”
On a Friday in early December, Castro’s supervisor, assistant principal Andrew Mazzei, met with her and instructed her to take down the crucifix by Monday morning. She didn’t.
At one point, the district said Castro could hide the crucifix under her desk, by her feet.
In mid-December, Castro was reprimanded for insubordination and suspended without pay. In a reprimand letter, Maryellen Manning, the district’s chief of relationships and accountability, said displaying the crucifix violates the establishment clause.
“The Board of Education owns and controls the classroom walls,” she wrote. “So, by hanging [the crucifix] on the classroom wall, you are, in effect, saying that ‘the New Britain Board of Education endorses this religion.’ That violates the Establishment Clause.”
Castro’s lawsuit notes that other teachers are allowed to post secular images and items around their desks, including images of Wonder Woman, Baby Yoda, and New England Patriots pennants.
“The district is supposed to treat religion neutrally, and that’s the thing they don’t understand,” Russell said. “If you’re allowed to have all these other secular objects up there, then a religious object should be treated no differently.”
Gasper said the district “does allow employees to express personal interests and beliefs, as long as such expression does not interfere with the educational environment or violate other policies, including those related to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”
On Monday, the district also provided National Review with 21 pages of notes documenting allegations of unprofessional conduct on Castro’s part since August. The notes indicate that Castro has repeatedly been reprimanded for things such as yelling at students, making negative comments — including words like “stupid” and “ass” — causing students to feel “unsafe” by pounding on her desk, and not letting students go to the restroom or nurse’s office. Castro claimed that she felt like she was being attacked by students and singled out by administrators, according to the notes. Most of the allegations made against Castro by parents and students do not concern religion.
Gasper said the district is also working to verify complaints that Castro called students “sinners,” telling them they “need Jesus,” and referring to “Poppa God” in class.
“If verified through our ongoing investigation, the frequent use of these statements/terms by a public-school teacher in concert with a crucifix prominently displayed in the classroom would paint a very different scenario than the one being presented by Ms. Castro and her legal counsel,” Gasper said.
There is no indication in documents provided to National Review that the district ever addressed the concerns over alleged religious commentary with Castro, who is now on paid leave.
“They made it very clear in all of their conversations with her and all of their written communication that her discipline is because of this crucifix, and that’s the reason why we’re suing right now,” Russell said. “If they want to bring up other things, they’ll have to prove it.”