Counselor Suspended For Exposing Kids to Christian Music
Orange County, CA – A lawsuit has been filed against Orange County by a veteran group home counselor who was suspended six weeks for exposing four teenagers to Christian music. The counselor is represented by affiliate and staff attorneys of Pacific Justice Institute.
The lawsuit states that, in the summer of 2006, the counselor took four teenage girls from the Orangewood Children's Home on an approved field trip to a 5K run and then to the beach. At the beach, the group encountered a “Surf Jam” taking place at the Huntington Beach pier. The group also overheard Christian music for about ten minutes while they were eating.
Following the beach outing, the counselor, an eighteen-year employee, was summoned to a disciplinary meeting focusing on the Christian music. Several months later, the same incident was brought up again and the counselor was slapped with a six-week suspension for "exposing children to unapproved religious activities."
After many months of exhausting state administrative remedies, the counselor filed suit late last week in Orange County Superior Court to recover the financial losses she suffered from the suspension and to vindicate her constitutional rights. The counselor is represented by John and Laurie Messerly Stewart, attorneys in Orange, California, and the Pacific Justice Institute.
Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, commented, "What happened to this counselor was insane and unjust. Allowing teenagers to overhear a few minutes of Christian music while at the beach should not result in a six-week suspension."
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So a teenage counselor took some kids on a approved field trip; a 5k run. "The group also overheard Christian music for about ten minutes while they were eating .' So did the counselor play the music for them, or did they just happen to hear it? Or was the music coming from the "Surf Jam" at the pier? Now, if the counselor played the offending music, that is one thing. But if they just happened to hear christian music through no action of the counselor at all, then that is another thing, especially if the counselor did not know that the music being heard was christian in nature.
I have been in several stores where the music being played is christian. It is not obviously christian; it sounds just like the 'elevator music' that I hear in most other stores, but I am familiar with some christian music tunes, so I understand that the music being played (no words sung, tho) is christian in nature. A person who did not know those particular tunes would not have known that the music was christian in nature.
Some are offended by that type of music. So be it. The counselor should have known that and acted appropriately. I cannot explain why the counselor was apparently reprimanded twice; first the disciplinary meeting then 'several months later' the suspension. It seems to me that something else is/was going on that was not reported.