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PHILLIPSBURG, N.J. — A teacher has filed a lawsuit against the school district that fired him after he gave a student a copy of the Bible.
Walt Tutka was employed as a substitute teacher for the Phillipsburg School District in New Jersey. According to the Express-Times, the incident began this past fall when he told a student waiting last in line, "Just remember the first will be last and the last will be first."
Later that day, the student stopped Tutka and asked where the quote was from, according to the Express-Times. Tutka replied that it was from the Bible and promised to look it up and tell the student where he found it the next time he taught.
"This occurred several times," Tutka told board members at a November meeting held to determine whether or not he should be terminated.
On Oct. 12, Tutka said he was reading his own copy of the New Testament during lunch and decided to show the student the Bible and the passage.
"I looked at him and said, 'Listen, this is my personal copy. I want to gift it to you,'" Tutka told board members. "He received it, he was happy to get it."
School officials, however, were not pleased. They say Tutka was in violation of district policy, which prohibits the distribution of religious material to students on school grounds. Tutka was called to the office to discuss the incident and last worked three days after it occurred.
The motion to terminate Tutka was tabled at the November meeting, pending further review of the district's policy. But on Jan. 14, "despite a litany of cries from residents to keep Judeo-Christian beliefs present in Phillipsburg schools," according to the Express-Times, the school board voted to terminate him from the approved district substitute list for the rest of the 2012-2013 school year.
Board President Kevin DeGerolamo was among those in favor of terminating Tutka. "I think there is a line, I think that you did cross that line," he said at the November meeting. "Even when a child keeps persisting you can tell them where to go, reference that quote that you gave, without handing them the tool itself."
Board member Rosemarie Person agreed but took a somewhat softer stance.
"I’m not saying what you did was wrong, but we know as a teacher that you are never supposed to cross that line about talking about the Bible in school," she said.
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Last week Tutka filed a wrongful termination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming he was a victim of "religious discrimination."
"It is shocking that the school district has forced Walt to file a complaint," said Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for Liberty Institute, a Christian legal defense fund which is representing Tutka, along with a New Jersy law firm. "All Walt did was respond to a student’s intellectual curiosity and the school district suspended and then terminated him."
Sasser also alleges the district has declined to turn over emails pertaining to the termination, which were requested through the state's open records law.
"We want to understand what their perspective is," Sasser told the Express-Times. "For whatever reason, they don't want to show it to us."
The school is likely to claim "separation of church and state" as a defense for Tutka's firing, according to Newsmax: "Federal courts have ruled that public schools can't display religious symbols or texts because it crosses the line dividing church from state."
Tutka is hoping the district will reinstate him as a substitute teacher, in addition to exonerating him of any wrongdoing and "perhaps apologize for all this craziness," Sasser said.