Teacher fired for Bible: A New Jersey substitute teacher who was allegedly fired for giving a student a Bible filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, in Newark.
The teacher, Walt Tutka, who was working a substitute last October when he quoted a line from the Bible, according to The Warren Reporter. A student “repeatedly” asked him where the line was from and Tutka told him it was from the Bible, according to his complaint against the Phillipsburg School District.
Tutka handed the middle school student a pocket-sized Bible, according to the Express Times. However, Superintendent George Chando told him several days later that he was recommending that he be fired for giving the student the book. Tutka was dismissed in January.
“I believe that I have been discriminated against in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and retaliated against regarding same,” Tutka said in the complaint.
“It is shocking that the school district has forced Walt to file a complaint with the EEOC for religious discrimination,” said Hiram Sasser with the Liberty Institute, a nonprofit that promotes religious freed, according to the Warren Reporter. “All Walt did was respond to a student’s intellectual curiosity and the school district suspended and then terminated him.”
“We want to understand what their perspective is,” Sasser added, according to the Express-Times. “For whatever reason, they don’t want to show it to us.”
The EEOC told Tutka that mediation and legal action are his options in the case, according to the Liberty Institute, reported WFMZ.
The complaint claims discrimination and retaliation based on religion.
Phillipsburg’s school superintendent didn’t immediately return a phone message seeking comment Thursday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
