Connecticut teacher escorted out of school over classroom crucifix takes fight to federal appeals court

A veteran Connecticut public school teacher who says she was escorted out of her school with a crucifix in a box after refusing to remove the religious symbol from her classroom is taking her First Amendment fight to a federal appeals court, with oral arguments scheduled for Dec. 7.

Marisol Arroyo-Castro, who has taught for more than 30 years, told Fox News Digital that she was stunned when a school administrator informed her that displaying the crucifix was illegal and warned that refusing to remove it would amount to insubordination. “I said, ‘I can’t,’” she recalled, remembering the moment she was told she could return to her classroom only if she left the crucifix behind.

The dispute began in December 2024, after administrators at DiLoreto Elementary & Middle School in New Britain, Connecticut, ordered Arroyo-Castro to remove a crucifix she had displayed near her desk for roughly a decade. Arroyo-Castro, who was teaching middle-school social studies, said the crucifix had been a quiet source of comfort throughout her career, something she would look at while grading papers or completing reports. “I pretty much kept it to myself,” she said. “It keeps me calm and [it’s] just part of me.” When administrators pressed her to move it, she said she broke down in tears.

On Dec. 11, 2024, she received a formal reprimand for insubordination, and the following day school officials removed the crucifix and suspended her for two days without pay. She was placed on paid administrative leave on Dec. 16, 2024, and reassigned to a non-teaching role in March 2025. “They told me that I couldn’t go back into the school near the children, that they didn’t want me around the students, that I’m not supposed to talk to the students or interact with them or any of the staff in the school. Things like that, like I was a pariah or something,” she said.

Arroyo-Castro filed a federal lawsuit in January 2025, alleging violations of her First Amendment rights. A federal judge denied her request for a preliminary injunction in November 2025, finding she was unlikely to prevail because the classroom display constituted government speech.

Her attorneys appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Becky Rees Dummermuth, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, said oral argument will take place on Dec. 7 in New York City, where they will argue that Arroyo-Castro’s speech was private speech. She pointed to the Supreme Court’s Kennedy decision, which upheld football coach Joe Kennedy’s right to pray publicly, saying it made clear that a teacher’s private religious expression is allowable even if students are able to see it. Her attorneys will also argue that if other educators are permitted to display personal items near their desks, religious expression should not be singled out for exclusion.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Consolidated School District of New Britain said the district “has consistently maintained that this matter extends beyond the presence of a religious symbol in a classroom,” citing an independent, third-party investigative report and “a broader pattern of statements and actions that raised serious concerns about the treatment of students of differing religious backgrounds.” The spokesperson said the district respects the religious beliefs of all students and staff but has “a legal and ethical responsibility to ensure that every classroom remains an inclusive and welcoming environment,” and that Arroyo-Castro was offered a variety of ways to practice her faith which she and her attorneys declined.

The district’s referenced third-party report included interviews with four teachers and the school’s principal and assistant principal, as well as Arroyo-Castro herself. It reiterated several students’ claims that she referenced God, Jesus and religion in a manner the investigator concluded was inappropriate; it included her denial that she made such references “during a class.” The teachers interviewed also criticized her classroom management and treatment of students.

First Liberty responded that the school district repeatedly told Arroyo-Castro she could return to the classroom if she simply took down the crucifix, and that when they removed her, “the only concern they mentioned was preventing an alleged Establishment Clause violation, a baseless concern that cannot survive the Supreme Court’s Kennedy decision.” Both sides now look to the Second Circuit’s Dec. 7 hearing.