A teacher suspended without pay for displaying her cross at a school in Connecticut told Newsmax on Monday there is no reason to take it down.
Marisol Arroyo-Castro has been a teacher at the Consolidated School District of New Britain for 30 years and has displayed the crucifix beside her desk the past 10 years, before the school district asked her to remove it.
"I just couldn't do that because I know that I have the right to do that," Arroyo-Castro said on "National Report." "The Constitution is not telling me to take it down. So why should anybody else tell me to take it down? And it also means so much to me. It's a piece of me. It's part of my religion.
"It's part of my growing up. It's part of my God. It's part of my soul. And there's no reason why I need to take it down. So why should I?"
Arroyo-Castro, who appeared with her lawyer, said a student never complained to her about it.
"We have a lot of Christian students in our school population, so there was a lot of students who identify with it who came up to see it or make a comment on it," Arroyo-Castro, who teaches seventh-grade social studies, said. "There was never a problem with any of the students ever. And the ones who didn't know, I would get maybe one student asking me about it, and I would tell them about it and then ask them to go to their parents and let them ask them questions or to Google it. It never was a problem."
In a statement, the district said: "We will not allow any teacher to use their position of authority to impose their personal religious beliefs or infringe on the civil rights of students. Our commitment is to ensure a learning environment where all students feel respected."
Arroyo-Castro said she wasn’t imposing her religion on anybody.
"Everywhere I went I took my cross with me," Arroyo-Castro said. "I mean, I had the cross with me since literally I was born. The cross was probably the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes, because my family was so into it, and it's so sacred to us. It’s meaningful to us."
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Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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