The Freshwater case still continues
Lizards might remember this guy as the one who burned a cross onto a student’s arm with an electrostatic device.
With a brief filed (PDF) in Ohio’s Fifth District Court of Appeals, John Freshwater is appealing a court’s ruling to uphold his termination as a middle school science teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio. It is the latest twist in a long saga that began in 2008, when a local family accused Freshwater of engaging in inappropriate religious activity — including teaching creationism — and sued Freshwater and the district. The Mount Vernon City School Board then voted to begin proceedings to terminate his employment. After administrative hearings that proceeded sporadically over two years, the referee presiding over the hearings issued his recommendation that the board terminate his employment with the district, and the board voted to do so in January 2011.
Freshwater challenged his termination in the Knox County Common Pleas Court on February 8, 2011. After the court found “there is clear and convincing evidence to support the Board of Education’s termination of Freshwater’s contract(s) for good and just cause,” the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based conservative legal group, promptly announced its intention to appeal the decision on Freshwater’s behalf. The latest brief was filed by Freshwater’s attorney R. Kelly Hamilton “in conjunction with” the Rutherford Institute. It asks for a reversal of the lower court’s decision, monetary damages for wrongful termination and violation of civil rights, and reinstatement of Freshwater in his teaching position.