John Freshwater Sues Ohio School District

John Freshwater, the school teacher that was dismissed from his job as biology teacher at the Mount Vernon High School, in Ohio, is suing the district for discrimination and defamation. The story notes:

The lawsuit denies charges that Freshwater violated district policy or taught creationism or intelligent design in his classroom and maintains that other teachers in the district have been permitted to keep Bibles on their desks.

Freshwater contends that the defendants violated his constitutional right to free speech, discriminated against him based on religion and defamed him through the investigative report.

"We are asserting that the report is not complete, is not accurate and is downright defamatory and inflammatory," R. Kelly Hamilton, Freshwater's Grove City-based attorney, said yesterday.

Hamilton said the suit is being filed now because a statute of limitations on the defamation claim expires June 20, the one-year anniversary of when the board voted and the investigation was released to the public.

Freshwater, if you will remember, was accused of branding crosses into students' arms and teaching creationism. I posted about this some time back. The comments to that post were particularly illuminating.