(Ryan Mills/National Review) — 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.”
