An elementary school principal is filing a lawsuit against the Goleta Union School District after it threatened to end his contract for appearing in a short video promoting the 52nd Annual Community Prayer Breakfast to honor teachers.
Foothill School Principal Craig Richter, an evangelical Christian, was disciplined by his district after a district board member saw the promo video on YouTube and reported it to the board, according to the complaint. The school district said that Richter’s 30-second speech in the video violated the line of separation between church and state.
“Personally endorsing a prayer event that invites people of all faiths to honor teachers should not be twisted into a constitutional violation,” said William Rehwald, Richter’s lead counsel in the case. “Principal Richter did a good thing, not a bad thing, and should keep his job.”
Rehwald is an attorney with Rehwald, Glasner and Chaleff in Woodland Hills, California, who is also supported by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian public interest firm, in the case against the Goleta Union School District.
Richter himself did not participate in the prayer breakfast, which was open to all religious faiths. The event’s organizers decided that this year’s theme would be to honor teachers. Organizers of the prayer breakfast designed the video to promote the prayer breakfast to local business owners who might also wish to honor teachers.
Richter made the ad in March and appeared for 30 seconds along with a Santa Barbara-area school superintendent and a local teacher.
However district officials claim that Richter identified himself in the video as a principal of the school district, implying their official support. The suit contends that Richter only represented himself as a local educator, the principal of Foothill School.
According to the complaint, Richter and other Foothill School educators did not attend the prayer breakfast because the district decided not to participate. Additionally, it says the district cited traffic safety concerns, possible lateness from teachers returning to their classrooms, but gave no indication that they had concerns about promoting religion.
“It’s ridiculous to punish and fire a Christian administrator simply because he wanted to honor teachers at an event that includes prayer,” commented Joseph Infranco Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which is supporting the case. “Principal Richter did absolutely nothing wrong by appearing in the ad, which welcomed all Santa Barbara community members to join the half-century-old community event. The district’s contention that he was somehow violating the Constitution is not only unfounded, but absurd, as the video itself demonstrates.”
