KIPP Antioch College Prep Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee issued a “final warning letter” to Eric Rivera on Jan. 7. Rivera, a devout Christian who believes that promoting homosexuality violates Biblical teaching, was to read the book to his students on Jan. 6 but did not. The following day Rivera was called to the principal’s office and threatened with termination. Rivera was later removed from his first-grade classroom and reassigned to a lab and technology teaching position before again being reassigned to a kindergarten teaching position.
First Liberty Institute filed suit on Feb. 17 on Rivera’s behalf, requesting that KIPP Antioch College Prep Elementary School remove the final warning letter from his personnel file, stop discriminating against individuals for their religious beliefs in hiring and evaluating employees, and commit to accommodating religious employees who wish to refrain from reading any materials to students that violate their faith.
The suit cites Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which established that employers cannot discriminate against individuals for their religious beliefs and requires employers to accommodate employees’ religious practices unless it would cause an “undue hardship” on the conduct of the employer’s business.
“Mr. Rivera’s sincerely held religious beliefs are protected under the First Amendment,” the suit stated. “Thus, he was within his rights to request a reasonable accommodation. As employees, teachers have the right to opt out of curricula that they find religiously objectionable just as students do unless the opt out would cause an undue hardship.”