A high-school History teacher in California is not personally liable for comments that may have been derogatory toward religion, the 9th Circuit ruled today. The law simply isn't specific enough about the rules defining the relationship between academic freedom and religious neutrality to have given John Corbett "fair warning" in teaching a class that required discussion of religion topics.
From the opinion released today in Farnan v Capistrano Unified School District:
[N]othing in the law would make clear to a reasonable person that he might violate the Establishment Clause by making the challenged statements in the context of a classroom discussion in an Advanced Placement history course. Even as a general matter, precedent on the Establishment Clause is scarce and we “have little guidance concerning what constitutes a primary effect of inhibiting religion.” (9th Cir. 2007). More to the point, we are aware of no prior case holding that a teacher violated the Establishment Clause by appearing critical of religion during class lectures, nor any case with sufficiently similar facts to give a teacher “fair warning” that such conduct was unlawful.
…
At some point a teacher’s comments on religion might cross the line and rise to the level of unconstitutional hostility. But without any cases illuminating the “ ‘dimly perceive[d] . . . line[ ] of demarcation’ ” between permissible and impermissible discussion of religion in a college level history class, we cannot conclude that a reasonable teacher standing in Corbett’s shoes would have been on notice that his actions might be unconstitutional.
The Court did not consider the constitutionality of the many comments in question in this case, needing to rule only that the teacher was not liable for damages for the one set of comments a lower court previously ruled unconstitutional.
