The Latest Setback for Christian Science Teacher John Freshwater

The secular humanistic National Center for Science Education reported the following news today regarding the much maligned and persecuted Christian science teacher in Ohio, John Freshwater.

“John Freshwater's legal challenge to the decision to terminate his employment as a middle school science teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio, failed on October 5, 2011, when a Knox County Common Pleas Court ruled against him. The Mount Vernon News (October 5, 2011) reported that the judge wrote, "there is clear and convincing evidence to support the Board of Education's termination of Freshwater's contract(s) for good and just cause," denied Freshwater's request for further hearings, and ordered him to pay the cost of the hearings. The Columbus Dispatch (October 5, 2011) added that Freshwater now has thirty days to appeal the decision to the Fifth Court of Appeals.

“The decision was the latest development in a long saga which 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 finally issued his recommendation that the board terminate his employment with the district, and the board voted to do so in January 2011. Freshwater challenged that decision in court on February 8, 2011, as NCSE previously reported.”

The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch had an additional story today regarding this case, “Ex-teacher loses lawsuit against Mount Vernon schools.”