Hide the Crucifix or Lose Your Job

In January, Marisol Arroyo-Castro, a public school teacher in New Britain, Connecticut, with over three decades of experience, was suspended without pay because she refused to remove a small crucifix from the wall next to her desk. The crucifix had been displayed for ten years without incident before the school principal demanded she hide her “idol” in her desk. This was part of a “compromise” struck by Arroyo-Castro’s union representative. She complied, at first, but put it back on the wall after feeling spiritually convicted. Consequently, she was put on administrative leave and now faces possible termination.

Arroyo-Castro’s crucifix was singled out for this treatment, but not her colleagues’ personal decorations, some of which are also clearly religious. According to the Daily Mail, school officials claim “they had also received complaints from students and parents that [Arroyo-Castro] incorporated her Catholic beliefs into her lessons.” Allegedly, she “called her students ‘sinners’ and told them ‘they need Jesus’” and “frequently used phrases like ‘Poppa God,’ while frequently weaving in ‘themes and stories from her religion into classroom instruction.’” 

While the school administration claims it received complaints from students and staff regarding Arroyo-Castro’s instruction “relatively simultaneously” to complaints about the crucifix, it only raised these concerns after she challenged her suspension. More likely, the administration began investigating her instruction because their disciplinary action exposed them to serious financial liability.

Arroyo-Castro’s suspension is baldly illegal. In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District that the district had violated the First Amendment rights of football coach Joseph Kennedy when it fired him for praying on the field with his players after their games. As Justice Neil Gorsuch explained in his opinion: “Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect expressions like Mr. Kennedy’s. Nor does a proper understanding of the Amendment’s Establishment Clause require the government to single out private religious speech for special disfavor.” Bremerton School District now owes Kennedy $1.7 million in damages.

District Superintendent Tony Gasper contends that hanging a crucifix “violates both federal and state laws requiring public schools to remain neutral in religious matters.” But the Court’s reasoning in Kennedy straightforwardly applies to Arroyo-Castro’s crucifix as well as to her alleged biblical references.

Arroyo-Castro’s suspension amounts to rank anti-Catholic discrimination. One can scarcely imagine administrators punishing a Muslim teacher for wearing a hijab, a Jewish teacher for wearing a Star of David necklace, or a queer teacher for hanging a Pride flag. Their assumption seems to be that it’s okay to bully Catholics because they aren’t normally seen as a protected minority.

My own experience as a public school teacher primes me to suspect this case stems from incompetent leadership following a parent complaint. Some parent—whose child was struggling in Arroyo-Castro’s class, perhaps, or who had an ax to grind against Catholics—probably took issue with the crucifix, threatened to sue, and the administrators overreacted. This sort of thing is far from uncommon.

Although progressive news outlets highlight stories of angry Christian parents trying to ban books and humiliate outwardly leftist teachers, there are even more leftist parents who seek to ban books (recall the crusades against Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Of Mice and Men during the “racial reckoning”) and punish conservative or Christian teachers. They will call the school’s administrators directly and tell them in no uncertain terms that the law demands they fire their Bible-thumping employee. If that doesn’t work, they take the issue to the superintendent. 

Most principals know better than to act on these complaints before assessing their credibility. In most cases, the complaint will prove to be a pretext for some other grievance. But some principals, often those hired for reasons other than merit, will take the complaint as an opportunity to punish their ideological opponents, regardless of their quality as educators. Whatever their motivations, the leadership at Arroyo-Castro’s school has erred greatly, and unless they reinstall her soon, it’s likely to cost them.

It is, of course, possible that Arroyo-Castro’s alleged talk of students being “sinners” who “need Jesus” wasn’t in jest, or otherwise excusable by context. Therefore, it’s worth briefly reflecting on what it means to be faithful as a Christian educator within the limits imposed by public schools. Insofar as Christian teachers maintain a distinction between their roles as educators and evangelists, they can be accused neither of “imposing” their religion nor of compromising their instruction. If Arroyo-Castro showed partiality toward fellow Catholics or hostility toward non-Catholics, or if she deviated from her lessons to share the gospel, then her administrators would have reasonable cause to reprimand her. More importantly, she would risk discrediting her faith instead of modeling it through doing good work, being charitable, and establishing the rapport necessary to share her faith successfully outside the formal context of her job. We have no reason to believe she hasn’t practiced the latter approach. 

Christian public school teachers should understand their pedagogy as praeparatio evangelica and craft it accordingly. Within their formal duties, they may not be able to plant the gospel seed themselves, but they can and should till the soil, laying conceptual groundwork and inculcating their students with just sentiments, in advance of the Spirit’s movement. A crucifix—a sign bursting with meaning that draws eyes and provokes questions—on the wall of one’s classroom is a natural tool of such tilling.