Teacher Suspended Over LGBTQ Books Fights Back in Court
Karen Cahall is suing her school district for suspending her as punishment for simply having books with LGBTQ characters in her classroom.
Karen Cahall, an elementary school teacher in Ohio, is suing her school district after being suspended for having books with LGBTQ characters in her classroom library.
A third-grade teacher at Monroe Elementary School in New Richmond, Ohio, Cahall has worked for the New Richmond Exempted Village School District for over three decades. But last month, she was suspended for three days without pay by Superintendent Tracey Miller after a parent, Kayla Shaw, complained that four books in Cahall’s classroom library that feature LGBTQ characters were inappropriate for elementary school children.
The books in question are Ana On the Edge, by A.J. Sass, The Fabulous Zed Watson, by Basil Sylvester, Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea, by Ashley Herring Blake, and Too Bright to See, by Kyle Lukoff.
All feature LGBTQ characters, but do not contain any sexual conduct or descriptions of sexual activity, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Cahall argues in her lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, that none of the books can be considered “obscene,” “offensive,” or appealing to prurient interests, and all have serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.
Furthermore, the lawsuit argues, the presence of LGBTQ-themed books within the collection aligns with Cahall’s “sincerely held moral and religious beliefs that all children, including children who are LGBTQ+ or the children of parents who are LGBTQ+, deserve to be respected, accepted, and loved for who they are.”
Such arguments invoking religious freedom are typically used by conservatives to justify anti-LGBTQ discrimination or the removal of LGBTQ materials from classrooms and libraries.
Cahall claims that the books in question are not prominently displayed in her classroom but are “kept in a series of large bins” and are interspersed with nearly 100 other books on various topics. She argues that the books “are not arranged or displayed in a manner so that one can easily peruse the book titles or ascertain the subject matter of any particular book without physically going through the bins and individually reviewing each of the books.”
Cahall maintains that she did not teach from those books as part of her instructional duties and did not require her students to read those books.
The lawsuit notes that even Shaw, in her email complaining about the books, never alleged that Cahall was teaching from those books or “otherwise using the books to indoctrinate students or endorse an LGBTQ+ lifestyle in her classroom.”
Rather, Shaw’s objection was that the mere presence of books in the classroom, even if they were never read by a single student, was inappropriate and required disciplinary action.
In a letter to Cahall, Superintendent Miller alleged that the teacher knew the books were controversial and “not acceptable” because she had asked for them to be housed in the school library, but that request was denied.
Miller accused Cahall of placing the books in her own classroom library “without putting them through the established approval process.”
Because he believed Cahall’s actions “were intentional,” Miller suspended her for three days without pay.
“It is my sincere hope that you will internalize the discipline you are receiving and that you will reflect upon this in order to change,” Miller wrote in the suspension notice. “However, if you continue to behave in this manner in the future, you will be subjected to more severe discipline up to and including termination of your employment.”
The school board has a policy, adopted in 2009, regarding controversial issues.
Under that policy, topics “likely to arouse both support and opposition in the community” are allowed to be taught in classrooms so long as they are related to the class’s instructional goals, encourage open-mindedness, and teachers do not attempt to “indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view.” If topics come up outside of the curriculum, they must be approved by a school’s principal.
In her lawsuit, Cahall challenges the constitutionality of the policy, arguing that it is vague because it does not explicitly define what constitutes an “instructional program” or a “controversial issue.”
She also claims that the policy does not speak to which books a teacher may keep in their classroom library if they’re not being used as part of formal classroom instruction, and therefore violates her right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Cahall notes that during the 2021-2022 academic year, the district opposed two proposals, including one that would have allowed LGBTQ-supportive teachers to signal their allyship with rainbow stickers.
Cahall acknowledges other individuals in the school have moral and religious views different from her own, especially as it pertains to LGBTQ issues. However, other teachers have been permitted to display symbols of religious belief and use their official school district emails to promote Christian events and charities.
Cahall argues that the U.S. Constitution forbids the government from promoting or favoring one religion or religious viewpoint over another. As such, by allowing other teachers to express their views and promote events and organizations that align with their beliefs but disciplining her for her religious views, Cahall argues that the school district engaged in “content- and viewpoint-based discrimination,” in violation of her First Amendment rights to freedom of religion and freedom of speech and her Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection under the law.
Cahall has named Miller, as well as the school board, as an entity, and all five school board members individually, as defendants in her lawsuit.
She is asking the court to declare the “controversial issues” policy unconstitutional and to block district and school officials from enforcing it. She is also seeking compensatory damages for lost wages, as well as the cost of legal fees and attorneys’ costs associated with filing the lawsuit.
The school district has declined to comment on the matter.
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