Court revives anti-Christian bias claims for school official fired after objecting to Matthew Shepard play

A U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that a former assistant principal may proceed with his religious discrimination lawsuit against his former school district, which he alleges fired him over “religious comments” he made objecting to a school play about the brutal murder of a young gay man.

A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit and said the plaintiff, Corey McNellis, had provided enough circumstantial evidence against the defendant, Douglas County School District (DCSD), “to give rise to an inference of discrimination.”

“[McNellis] alleged he was treated less favorably than other DCSD employees and claimed DCSD’s termination decision was ‘premised on [his] religious beliefs,’” U.S. Circuit Judge Veronica Rossman, a President Biden appointee, wrote for the court. “We agree.”

McNellis was fired in 2020, two years before he filed the lawsuit. His termination followed a DCSD investigation into “religious comments” he made in response to an email from the theater director announcing the school’s play would be “The Laramie Project” — a play centered on the 1998 death of college student Matthew Shepard, whose death is widely seen as one of the worst anti-gay hate crimes in recent history.

McNellis replied, asking what avenues of recourse he would have “as a Dad of a student here and also as an employee in the school” to express concern about the play selection. The email, sent to all staff, spurred a subsequent conversation in which McNellis sent three additional emails with “religious comments” that allegedly were the basis for his termination.

“As a [C]hristian 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 one email, adding in a second, “I understand people support this. Forgive me for having a different viewpoint and the audacity to publicly share it.”

“For the record, all of administration does not agree with me on this. I am totally solo. Good night Mustangs!” he said in a third email.

The court noted that DCSD cited “religious comments” when administrators informed McNellis that he needed to stay home the next day, and when he was placed on leave and informed three days later of an investigation into the religious comments.

When he was ultimately terminated less than a month later, “Defendant directly cited Mr. McNellis’s emails regarding The Laramie Project as the reason for his termination,” according to the court filing.

“Here, Mr. McNellis’s allegations that DCSD repeatedly invoked his ‘religious comments’ before investigating and terminating him provide a plausible link between his termination and a discriminatory motive. Under these circumstances, and at this procedural stage, that is sufficient to nudge [his] claims across the line from conceivable to plausible,” Rossman wrote in her decision.

The Hill has reached out to McNellis’s lawyer and the school district’s lawyer for a response.

While the three judges disagreed with the lower court’s dismissal of McNellis’s bias claims, they agreed McNellis could not prove his claims of retaliation and free-speech violations and upheld the lower court’s dismissal of the claims.

The decision was unanimous. The two other judges include Judge Robert Bacharach, a President Obama appointee, and Judge Harris Hartz, a President George W. Bush appointee.

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