Teacher Fired For His Beliefs

This was in today's local paper. Now, while I am not Catholic, and I usually disagree with parochial school content and catholicisim in general, I have to respect this teacher. I do agree 100 % with the views he presents here, as, I think, should all denominations, who claim to be followers of Jesus the Christ.

October 15, 2005

By LYNNE TUOHY

Hartford Courant Staff Writer

Stephen Kobasa has taught English in parochial schools for 25 years, always with a deep religious conviction and without an American flag in his classroom. It was never an issue until this school year began.

Kobasa was fired from his job at Kolbe Cathedral High School in Bridgeport Thursday, in the face of a new diocesan policy that he says he's never seen in writing and hours after turning in his classroom flag to Principal Jo-Anne Jakab. "I had come to the end of all the procedures of appeal available to me," Kobasa, 57, said Friday. He said his deep-seated religious belief, not un-American sentiments, was at the core of his opposition to having the flag in the classroom. "The crucifix cancels all flags," said Kobasa, a longtime peace activist. "Christ speaks of compassion without boundaries. ...Flags are about separation, assertions of superiority and aggression. The whole notion that loyalty to country is connected to one's religious faith is totally bizarre and unjustified."

A statement posted on the Diocese of Bridgeport's website, attributed to spokesman Joseph McAleer, confirmed that Kobasa "is no longer a member of the faculty at Kolbe Cathedral High School. It is not our policy to comment on any internal personnel matter." The statement makes cryptic reference to the flag issue, without direct reference to Kobasa. "Our Catholic schools provide a dynamic learning environment in which respect for the opinions of others, as well as respect for school property, are both key components," it says.

"The Diocese of Bridgeport has long believed that the American flag is an important fixture in its Catholic school classrooms." When asked if Kobasa's opinions had been respected, McAleer declined to comment. Kobasa is not sure who made the flag an issue. He said he had heard that a colleague complained about the lack of a flag in his classroom. The school year began with an announcement that the Pledge of Allegiance would be said by all classes at the beginning of the day.

"This posed a problem for me," Kobasa said. "I offered a compromise." Kobasa agreed to display the flag at the start of the school day, for the duration of the pledge, "for any students who feel they require this expression of loyalty to the flag." Then he would remove it.

"I felt I could keep my conscience intact and I wasn't imposing my position on them," Kobasa said. But his compromise was rejected by the diocese's school superintendent and Jakab. Kobasa said he wrote to Bishop William E. Lori to emphasize that for him, the absence of the flag from his classroom was a matter of conscience, not whimsy. He received no response.

Before coming to Kolbe Cathedral in 1999, Kobasa had taught for years at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in New Britain, in a flag-free classroom. "It was never an issue."

Kobasa bristles when asked if he contemplates filing a lawsuit."This was never about law," Kobasa said. "When school administrators communicated with me they would say, 'Are you bringing your lawyer?' It was never about that. I never raised it as a free-speech issue. What grounds would I have? None. It was about the moral principle that this tradition supposedly represents."

For a newly unemployed man who watched his eldest daughter amend her college application to list her father's occupation as "former English teacher," Kobasa was remarkably good-natured Friday. He spoke of the gratitude he felt at being allowed to remain at school throughout Thursday to explain his position and fate to his students.

"I had not gone into detail with them," Kobasa said of the weeks he spent negotiating and appealing. "I had not evangelized the point of my stand."

He said the support he received from the students was "quite remarkable." He said they spontaneously made posters decrying his termination and were chanting his name in the halls.

"There was all sorts of pageantry," Kobasa said. "It's not something that happens often in that school. "I taught up to the end, I guess I can say," Kobasa said. "It was my last lesson. For the ones to whom this matters, they'll remember this."