Eyes on the cross

A cross has hung on the wall next to Marisol Arroyo-Castro’s desk alongside family photos and calendars for more than a decade. The cross features a raised shape depicting Christ’s death. Raised Catholic,  she says the cross reminds her to pray and reflect on Jesus.

Arroyo-Castro has taught in Connecticut’s public schools for 32 years. She does not remember personally receiving any complaints about the cross. Rather, it has prompted encouraging responses. “A parent told me that she felt like I was a person who was faithful, and she felt comfortable with me as a teacher for her child because of that cross being there,” Arroyo-Castro told WORLD. The cross also sparked conversations with Christian students excited to learn that their teacher shared their faith, she said.

While no parent or student ever spoke negatively to her about the crucifix, Arroyo-Castro said that fellow teachers occasionally warned that she could get in trouble for publicly showing her Christian beliefs. That scenario became a reality in December.

Marisol Arroyo-Castro Photo courtesy of First Liberty Institute

Hide it under a bushel?

At DiLoreto Elementary & Middle School, a short drive from the state capital in Hartford, Arroyo-Castro’s vice principal informed her that someone filed a complaint about the cross and told her to remove it by the following Monday. The vice principal told Arroyo-Castro that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits permanent displays of religious symbols in public schools. Despite being threatened with discipline for insubordination, she decided to keep the cross on her wall. Days later she met with the principal, vice principal, chief of staff, and a teachers’ union representative. “They all came to my room and they told me, ‘Why don't you put it down here?’ And they had me put it all the way under the table, where you couldn't see it,” Arroyo-Castro said.

Complying with the request made her feel like she was betraying Jesus. “I started to cry,” she said. “Would Jesus put me under the table? When He needed to die for me on that cross, did He put me under that table?” The next day she returned to her classroom and put the cross back on the wall, determined to accept whatever punishment she would face for holding to her convictions. She received a couple of days of unpaid leave.

The school has not published details of the complaint. But it said in a news release that several other concerns were raised to administrators at the same time. Officials were also investigating student and staff reports that Arroyo-Castro made religious comments while teaching, a representative from the school district said in the news release. The complaints were that she called misbehaving students “sinners" and said they "need Jesus."

But Arroyo-Castro’s legal counsel from the nonprofit Christian organization First Liberty said that district officials did not raise those additional concerns until after she refused to remove the cross. “They never once mentioned them in multiple meetings with Marisol before suspending her. Instead, the officials made it clear that, if she removed her crucifix, she could return to the classroom,” attorney Becky Dummermuth said.

Photo courtesy of First Liberty Institute

Staying the course

After her initial suspension administrators again asked if Arroyo-Castro would consider hiding the cross under her desk or in a drawer. When she refused, she was placed on unpaid administrative leave. Last month, the school transferred her to a non-teaching role, Dummermuth said.

The district said it was following standard procedures for investigating staff by placing Arroyo-Castro on leave and temporarily reassigning her to a central office position. Teachers are not allowed to impose their religious beliefs on students, Superintendent of Schools Tony Gasper said in a released statement. Administrators and the teachers’ union proposed different solutions for Arroyo-Castro to place the cross in her classroom, but she declined all of their ideas, he added in another statement.

First Liberty and the law firm WilmerHale are defending the teacher. In January they filed a lawsuit on her behalf against officials from the Consolidated School District of New Britain. Arroyo-Castro’s lawyers argued that the school district unfairly used the establishment clause of the First Amendment to restrict her free speech rights. The clause prohibits the government from establishing a religion or making laws that promote or disfavor any religion.

Considering Precedent

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District clarified that school districts cannot use the clause to infringe on a school employee’s right to religious expression, Dummermuth said. In the case, the justices found that a school district in Washington state must allow high school football coach Joe Kennedy to kneel and pray after games.

“Just like the students being able to see him pray on the 50-yard line after a football game was protected religious expression, we believe Marisol’s crucifix next to her desk is similar, and would receive that protection,” Dummermuth said. The school’s request that she remove the cross could set a dangerous precedent limiting an employee's personal or religious expression, according to the lawsuit. Other teachers at the school have inspirational quotes, university pennants, a photograph of the statue of the Virgin Mary, and a mug referencing a Bible verse in their personal desk spaces, First Liberty said.

The school district’s legal counsel said the case involving Arroyo-Castro is substantially different from the Kennedy case in both its facts and context.

First Liberty this month filed a motion for a preliminary injunction and a Title VII complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, calling on authorities to let Arroyo-Castro back in her classroom. She is just three years shy of her 35-year teaching anniversary. “I'm praying that everything works out because I want to stay for those three years and finish what I started, which is teaching,” she said. Winning the case would show students that they should not have to hide their faith and that they are free to express their religion, she said.