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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)

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Comer Files Suit in Texas

Posted on: July 6, 2008 9:09 AM, by Ed Brayton

You may remember the case of Christine Comer, the science curriculum director for the Texas Education Agency who was fired for sending an email about an upcoming speech by Barbara Forrest about creationism. She has now filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination, which she will almost certainly win.

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Are you sure she'll win? Obviously, the TEA is in the wrong and is being run by neanderthals, but doesn't her case rest on proving that their policy of neutrality on the topic of evolution is wrong? I mean... it IS wrong, but don't ask me to prove it in a court of law.

Posted by: FishyFred | July 6, 2008 9:56 AM

I'm trying to find a copy of the email message that triggered all of this, which is discussed all over the place but as far as I can tell never actually presented. Does anybody know where it can be found?

Posted by: Bill Poser | July 6, 2008 1:45 PM

Bill: Scroll down to the update here.

Posted by: FishyFred | July 6, 2008 2:08 PM

She has now filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination, which she will almost certainly win.

That's pretty optimistic. It looks like a strong case, but she will still need a good judge, which definitely cannot be counted on in a Texas federal court, let alone the federal court of appeals.

Posted by: tomh | July 6, 2008 6:34 PM

Didn't she resign? The email suggests termination or reassignment. I can see a judge/jury saying the resignation trumps any potential firing. Is there an official copy of anything saying 'resign or be fired'?

Posted by: j a higginbotham | July 6, 2008 7:22 PM

She should be able to claim constructive dismissal, an employer cannot evade employment law by deliberately making a person's working conditions intolerable and forcing them to resign. This doesn't require an actual demand to resign it could consist of simply making the job far more unpleasant than it would normally be or in some other method making it impossible for the employee to continue.

For an example my mother is a care worker and a churchgoing Roman Catholic, she wanted to have Sunday mornings free in order to attend church. Her employer was unwilling to agree to the request. It was important enough to her that she considered resigning, she would be able to sue for unfair dismissal as that would count as constructive dismissal. The employer backed down, they were in a rather weak position as they could take reasonable steps to accommodate her preferences.

Posted by: Brett Dunbar | July 7, 2008 6:56 AM

Nice to see that the TX Department of Education is using the ever-decreasing education resources to do things like monitoring teachers' mail.

Posted by: BSKay | July 7, 2008 10:25 AM

Comer has now filed her appeal. See
http://curricublog.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/comer-decision-appealed/

Posted by: Tony Whitson | August 13, 2009 2:49 PM