A lawsuit filed by the former assistant principal of a Colorado high school, alleging he was fired for offering to add a “Christian perspective” to a theatrical production, can move forward after being reinstated by a U.S. appeals court on Sept. 11.
Corey McNellis, who had worked at Ponderosa High School in Douglas County for 14 years and was a parent to a child attending the school at the time of the incident, filed the lawsuit in 2022.
Lawyers for McNellis alleged their client lost his job as the athletic director and assistant principal at the school in 2020 after asking colleagues what “recourse” he had if he disagreed with an upcoming school play about the murder of a gay college student, which they described as “religiously charged” and covering “distressing material.”
The play, “The Laramie Project,” focuses on the aftermath of the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming.
They added that McNellis had offered to “provide a Christian perspective” to the play. McNellis said he was later terminated from his job over “religious comments.”
The lawsuit was initially dismissed by U.S. District Judge Raymond Moore in September 2023, with the judge finding that McNellis had failed to show he suffered religious discrimination under Title VII and Colorado law. The judge also turned down McNellis’s claims that his First Amendment rights were violated and that he suffered retaliation.
In a Sept. 11 ruling, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that while McNellis could not prove the claims of retaliation and violations of his free speech, he could move forward with his religious discrimination claims.
According to the ruling, McNellis was terminated from his role at Ponderosa High School in October 2020 after expressing “reservations” in an email to staff about an upcoming performance of “The Laramie Project.”
Stay Home Over ‘Religious Comments’
“As a Christian I would love to collaborate with your project. Please let me know if the love that Jesus can provide will help your play,” he wrote in another.“For the record, all of administration does not agree with me on this. I am totally solo. Good night Mustangs!” McNellis wrote in a third email.
“I understand people support this. Forgive me for having a different viewpoint and the audacity to publicly share it,” he said in a fourth.
Other members of staff also offered to help with the production, including a history teacher who offered to provide a “social studies perspective” on the play, according to the lawsuit.
McNellis was then informed by senior management at the school the following day that he needed to stay home on Monday “because of his ’religious comments,'” court documents state.
He was then told that Douglas County School District was investigating him over the comments and that he would be placed on administrative leave during the probe, the ruling states.
Shortly thereafter, he was terminated, according to the legal filing.
It wasn’t until the July 2022 retirement of the school principal, referred to as “Mr. Ottmann” in court documents, that McNellis took legal action—triggered by a letter sent by Ottmann to the school district expressing his opinion, as a witness to the emails, that McNellis was “‘railroaded’ by the specific group of people based on his political and religious views,” according to the filing.
McNellis subsequently filed a lawsuit against the school district alleging religious discrimination, retaliation, and First Amendment violations.
In a statement to The Epoch Times, a spokesperson for the Douglas County School District said: “We applaud the Tenth Circuit’s ruling affirming the district court’s decision dismissing the First Amendment and religious retaliation claims.
“The Court’s reversal of the Plaintiff’s religious discrimination claim is procedural in nature and was not a ruling on the merits of the allegations. We will continue to vigorously defend those allegations.”
