Reflective of her activism from the bench, the trial judge in Arroyo-Castro v. Gasper ignored Supreme Court precedent on religious freedom.
A grave violation of religious freedom continues in New Britain, Connecticut. In Arroyo-Castro v. Gasper the federal trial court denied a teacher’s First Amendment speech and religion claims after officials suspended her for insubordination, involuntarily placing her in an administrative position for having the temerity to display a crucifix on the wall near her desk.
In light of the board and court’s having run roughshod over Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s right to religious freedom, this column begins by reviewing the case before reflecting on what it portends for the future of religious freedom.
The case and the context
Ms. Marisol Arroyo-Castro, a “devout Catholic” grandmother of five, then with 33 years of teaching experience, “regularly received ‘proficient’ or ‘exemplary’ evaluations” since coming to work in New Britain in 2004. In December 2024, officials suspended Ms. Arroyo-Castro without pay for two days in early December 2024 before placing her on administrative leave for refusing to remove the one-foot crucifix, about waist-high on the wall near the desk in her classroom.
Officials disciplined her after a fellow “seventh-grade science teacher [and] two students complained that Ms. Castro was exposing students to religion in the classroom.” Officials claimed that the crucifix “posed the risk of appearing to observers that she favored Christian over non-Christian students or that the school endorsed Christian beliefs, in violation of the Establishment Clause.”
However, other teachers were allowed to have displays near their desks “including athletic team pennants, inspirational phrases, college decals, family and pet photos, action figures of Wonder Woman, a picture of the Mona Lisa, and a desk mat with images of Baby Yoda [and other] items [with] ‘religious origins or connotations’ including a picture of Santa Claus, a coffee mug, a Christmas tree, and a small photograph of a statue of the Virgin Mary.”
After the parties were unable to resolve their disagreement through mediation, the judge rejected Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s claim that officials violated her First Amendment free speech and free exercise of religious rights.
Denying Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s request for a preliminary injunction enabling her to hang the crucifix, the judge argued that such relief was unavailable because she “acted pursuant to her official duties when she posted items on the classroom wall that students would see during instructional time.” She decreed that because the “wall decorations are thus speech pursuant to Ms. Castro’s official duties and subject to the District’s control,” officials could ban the crucifix for displaying a religious message to a “captive audience” of students.
The judge rejected Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s reliance on the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District that educational officials could not prevent a football coach from praying silently on the field after games. The judge also paid scant attention to a reference in Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s demand letter acknowledging that the Supreme Court “dispelled the ‘false choice’ between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.”
The letter further noted that the Kennedy Court found that “the demand to completely suppress from view religious expression proved an unreasonable burden on deeply held convictions” is unconstitutional.
At the same time, the judge was oblivious to the 2023 Guidance Letter from the Federal Department of Education during the Biden Presidency specifying that “[i]n contexts where a school permits teachers, coaches, and other employees to engage in personal speech…it may not prohibit those employees from engaging in prayer [or other personal expression] merely because it is religious or because some observers, including students, might misperceive the school as endorsing that expression.” The judge thus upheld Ms. Arroyo’s transfer to the district’s central offices, where she can display her crucifix.
Reflection and analysis
Reflective of her activism from the bench, the trial judge in Arroyo-Castro v. Gasper ignored Supreme Court precedent on religious freedom, selectively citing cases with which she agreed, as a member of the “imperial judiciary” Justice Barrett decried in a recent case involving judicial overreach.
Stepping out of her role as an impartial arbiter, the trial judge disregarded Supreme Court precedent in discounting, even minimizing, Kennedy’s rationale that educational officials cannot infringe on the religious expression rights of staff members, including coaches, solely because they work in public schools. Moreover, as noted, the judge snubbed President Biden’s Executive Order defending religious expression in public schools.
Even more disappointing than the judge’s activist opinion was how the school board apparently overlooked the outright animosity that Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s principal, Anthony Gasper, voiced his hostility toward her crucifix. The crucifix had hung near her desk “for the past 10 years,” below the level of a computer monitor, near student artwork, and a calendar. Yet, the administrator not only allowed other teachers to display the items of their choice but was apparently unfazed by the Christmas tree and small cross underneath it that Ms. Arroyo-Castro displayed in her classroom.
As clear evidence of Gasper’s antipathy toward Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s beliefs, her complaint pointed out that “on two occasions, [he] insinuated her crucifix was an ‘idol’ not fit for worship,’” adding “that Christians are to worship no “idols’” and asking if Ms. Castro wanted to “stay ‘true’ to that as a Christian.” Such callous disrespect, ill-informed denigration of the sincerely held religious beliefs of others has no place in public schools or anyplace in American life. Even in giving the principal the benefit of the doubt that he was trying to avoid violating the First Amendment, there was no reason for him to have insulted Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s religious beliefs, disrespectfully referring to the crucifix as an idol, apparently without facing disciplinary consequences from the board.
Considering that the board purportedly “valu[ed] diversity of backgrounds, beliefs, and perspectives”, why did such respect not extend to Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s crucifix? It is unclear how the crucifix “posed the risk of appearing to observers that she favored Christian over non-Christian students or that the school endorsed Christian beliefs…” while other symbols were acceptable. It is hardly realistic to think that all who saw the crucifix agreed with it, were influenced by it, or were offended by its presence.
Disputes such as this one involving Ms. Castro-Arroyo ultimately come down to a simple question: Will only secular views be permitted in public schools while Christian expressions of faith are excluded? It is particularly disconcerting that school officials and the judge discounted Kennedy as well as the principle outlined in Chief Justice Warren Burger’s seminal statement in the Supreme Court’s 1984 plurality order in Lynch v. Donnelly.
In pluralities, the parties in a case are bound to the outcome, but such opinions are not binding precedent due to the lack of a five-justice majority. The Court reasoned that a public display including a crèche, or Christmas manger scene representing the birth of Jesus, that had been displayed for more than forty years in a shopping area in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, was constitutionally permissible as a passive representation of religion. Similarly, because Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s crucifix was a passive display, it, too, should have been left in place.
Lynch is additionally noteworthy because Chief Justice Burger’s pithy comment in the majority judgment is relevant here. Burger observed that the Constitution “affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility to all.”
In light of this clear directive to accommodate religious freedom, it is disappointing that the trial court upheld the actions of board officials who not only transferred Ms. Arroyo-Castro from her teaching position but also disregarded the principal’s having acted with impunity in demonstrating overt hostility to her Catholic beliefs, refusing to make good faith efforts to respect her beliefs.
Because attorneys representing Ms. Castro-Arroyo promise to appeal to the Second Circuit, this dispute is probably far from over. Stay tuned.
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Saints and Divorce
Extra, extra! News and views for Wednesday, November 26, 2025
But put up a stolen rainbow flag & Banned Parenthood provides the parade..
This is a powerful and insightful reflection on the importance of protecting religious freedom in our schools. Thank you for highlighting Ms. Arroyo-Castro’s courage and the need for fairness and true diversity in public institutions. Your analysis reminds us that the Constitution calls for accommodation—not hostility—toward expressions of faith, and your clarity and conviction offer hope as this case continues forward.
Many strange people running our schools and their strange priorities and demands.
The federal dept of education should be disbanded.
I am a devout Catholic and agree with this ruling. I would not want a copy of the Koran displayed nor the Bhagavad Gita. There is a reason the Constitution says there shall be no establishment of an official Church. As much as I love our Lord Jesus Christ, displaying a crucifix in a public classroom connotes State approval of Christianity. The State can no more “approve” Christianity than it can Islam or Hinduism.
An online search showed that most public schools allow the teacher to wear a hijab, which is a religious symbol, dictated by the Koran. Jewish teachers are allowed to wear the kippa, which is a religious symbol. It seems that what scandalizes the authorities is the display of the cross, not other symbols. This hatred of the cross of course goes way back to the early days of Christianity. Martyrs died for displaying and not renouncing the cross. As Saint Paul famously put it, the “scandal of the cross” was notorious.
Actually it does seem odd to me for a teacher not in a Catholic school to hang a crucifix in their classroom.
Wearing one is a different thing.
You’ve said it, it’s part of the history lesson!
The Christmas tree is 100% Christian.
That is why it is no longer displayed in departments at elite universities and sometimes vandalized when in public. Many non Christians, a growing segment of our population, consider it offensive.
Finally, an opinion I can agree with. Display all major faiths or none in public education. Design comparative religion courses so children can learn that “my beliefs are only my beliefs” and others hold different beliefs. Respect difference. Peace to all.
I turned the situation around and posed the question, if a teacher wanted to display a rainbow flag would that be allowed? My preference is that all schools prevent any reference to the gay movement. If that position can be upheld, then I would agree that all religious symbols be disallowed also in public schools.
This was the right decision. Would we be ok with a Hindu teacher having a statue of Ganesh in the classroom?
I think a right and good decision for public schools, but keep out of our parochial schools. We should defend our right to teach our children the faith without interference from the secular culture in our own schools. This teacher was wrong displaying the crucifix in a public school.
As long as our tax money supports public education, however, we should have equal weight in voicing our opinion as to what goes on in the public schools and should make every effort to shield our children from unacceptable ideas and practices. Teachers should avoid indoctrinating their students with their religious, political and moral beliefs. At the same time, I think that children should be taught about the various religious beliefs. World history includes the development of the various world religions and their impact on culture. We must teach our children to know and to think and to make well informed decisions.
What if she displayed a word wall to support her literacy instruction about a non-denominational novel, and included the words forgive, believe, faith, and repent – among others? Would that have passed muster with the principal?
I would be. Look for what is similar in different faiths rather than what separates us.
We should realize that this case is not an anomaly or isolated. It is part of a long going effort to change the culture of the U.S. So this effort includes marginalizing Christianity, having schools and universities denigrate the US, normalize a number of sexual practices, blur the distinctions between men and women, feminize the culture, having judges push this agenda, changing the country demographically by allowing in millions and millions of immigrants in a short time so that they do not assimilate, and instead undermine the culture and replace the population, etc. Biden declared publicly that he wishes to have the white population become a minority, for the good of the country: “Whites will be an ABSOLUTE minority in America – that’s a source of our strength”. Hear and see
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/flashback-joe-biden-constant-unrelenting-immigration?msockid=224c6967a4c66f592bcc7fe7a5406e4e
Oscar: a white minority may not be a bad thing, but to wish for it is rather silly! 😜
Thirty years ago, I sat in a corporate “diversity” class which gave a graph showing the decreasing percentage of “white” people in the United States over decades. I thought it odd to make such a long range prediction, but later I learned the adage,
“The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.”
occasionally attributed in various similar statements to Abraham Lincoln, it was apparently first used by Dennis Gabor 1963 (later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, for his work on holography).
So it’s not only being wished for, it’s being engineered.
To follow 19th century eugenic classifications of human beings is rather silly, Br. Jacques.
We shouldn’t be enabling that sort of nonsense.
Are we conflating religious expression with attempts to proselytize?
When I was a student in grade school, the only time I saw a religious object was at home and when I attended “Released Time” each week.
Comparing the display of religious objects with an athlete kneeling on the field to pray is flawed.
“Are we conflating religious expression with attempts to proselytize?”
Even for you, that’s a ridiculous question.
I didn’t know public schools had weekly religious education off campus for Catholic children. I’m familiar with the Protestant version though. They park a trailer-type building adjacent to the public school for Bible classes during the week. Parents were required to give permission for their children to attend.
I knew Catholic parents whose children participated in that. They didn’t detect anything taught that was a problem. At least for small children.
Another excellent, perceptive article on an important topic by Professor Russo. I urge Principal Gasper to look up the etymology of the word ‘idol’ and then reflect on his claim that a crucifix is an “idol.” Such a claim is staked on extremely shaky grounds.
Did you note the reference to “Biden’s executive order defending religious expression in public schools?”
“The Biden administration this week updated its guidance on prayer and other religious expression in public schools, warning school employees not to encourage or endorse such activity. Teachers, school administrators, and other school employees may not encourage or discourage private prayer or other religious activity,” the Education Department writes in its new guidance, which adds that the U.S. Constitution permits school employees to engage in private prayer during the workday.
However, the Education Department warns, school employees can’t “compel, coerce, persuade, or encourage students to join in the employee’s prayer or other religious activity.” The guidance goes on to say that schools may take “reasonable measures” to ensure that students aren’t pressured or encouraged to join in the private prayers of their teachers or coaches.” See
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/education-department-warns-against-schools-encouraging-private-prayer-other-religious-activity?msockid=224c6967a4c66f592bcc7fe7a5406e4e
Even when the judicial action is in the hands of people with integrity, it’s easily wielded as an instrument of private judgement, preference or politics. When it’s not, which is more often than not, and the current situation, it’s a farce.
I am always mindful that once when I was engaged in regulatory analysis regarding retirement plans, a particularly odious inconsistency resulted in a Columbia trained attorney quipping “the law is about equity, not justice”. Now it’s not even about that.
How strange that the author neglects to name the judge in the the case. Sarah F Russell, in case anyone is interested.
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Federal Court upholds ban on crucifix in seventh-grade class in CT – Catholic World Report
ByEric Djirackor
Nov 29, 2025