Court Rejects First Amendment Claim but Allows Religious Discrimination Suit by Fired School Administrator to Proceed

By Robert J. Romano, JD, LLM, St. John’s University, Senior Writer Corey McNellis, a longtime educator within the state of Colorado school system, served as Ponderosa High School in the Douglas County School District (“DCSD”) Athletic Director and Assistant Principal from 2018 up until his termination in 2022. The reason McNellis’s tenure ended was predicated on his objections to the High School’s planned staging of “The Laramie Project,” a play about the murder of gay college stu